class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 15]"/> two go together, they don't make a crowd, and they needn't make a noise."

"Quote correctly," said the Student. "What Homer said was, that if you and I went to look for a treasure, I, being a mere man, would find it at once by logical processes of induction and deduction, while you, being a superior woman, were losing yourself in the quicksands of the intuitive short cut."

"Sir," said the girl, "your word is law to me. Therefore deduce."

"Persiflage," said the Student, "is not to be encouraged in young children. Remember that if you were to force me to do so I might come with you, and then I should see exactly how you bungled the thing."

"But that's what I want you to do, daddy," said Fiona.

"I don't," said the Student. "Though treasure hunting is quite an ancient and respectable amusement. For treasure, some have descended the crater of Popocatapetl; some have dived at Tobermory; some have dug in Kensington Gardens. Alexander found a treasure at Persepolis, and Essex lost another in Cadiz harbor. The treasure of the Incas lies hid in a Peruvian ravine, known but to two Indians at a time; the plunder which Alaric took from Rome is still beneath the river which he diverted to guard it. No one has ever found the hoard of Captain Kidd, or the gold carried in the Venetian galleon which sailed with the Armada and went on the rocks in this loch. The pursuit of treasure is, therefore, no doubt, for the young, a legitimate pastime."

"Daddy," said Fiona, "did one of the Armada ships really go ashore here?"

"Yes, my dear," said the Student. "She was a great Venetian, called after the Madonna of the Holy Cross, and she carried the doubloons contributed by the Church."

"That's not the treasure the old man meant," said the girl.

"It is not," said the Student. "We know all about the Venetian ship. The crew were mostly knocked on the head, but the captain brought the doubloons ashore and hid them. He himself was saved by my ancestor for the time being, to whom he gave a map showing the place in the cave in which the treasure was hidden. He never came back for it. So far, everything proceeded on approved lines. Unhappily, my ancestor was a careless sort of person, and gambled the plan away. We never heard any more of it. It is, however, a family tradition that there was nothing on the plan to identify the cave; and as this coast, and the islands in the loch, are honeycombed with caves, it would be of little use if we had it. No one knows whereabouts the galleon went ashore. On calm nights her officers may be seen swimming round the cliffs, keeping guard still over their holy gold. Angus MacEachan saw one once, and tried to speak to him; but he turned into a seal, and just looked at Angus with large patient eyes; and Angus' boat was wrecked the week after."

"And did you never search for the gold, daddy?" asked Fiona.

"Never, my dear," he said. "In the first place, it would mean a minute examination of some 170 caves. In the second place, half of the caves are not mine. In the third place, it is not the kind of treasure I want. In the fourth place, I haven't time. In the fifth place, I am morally certain it is not there now. In the sixth place, the Government would claim it as treasure-trove. And in the seventh and last place, I never thought about it till you asked me."

"I'm not getting any further with my treasure hunting, daddy," said Fiona. "Let's go out together and start."

"My dear," said the Student, "it's your search, not mine. It's no use my trying to come with you. And I have a fancy that it won't begin like that."

"Can you tell me how to begin then, daddy?" she asked.

"I suppose by taking no notice of it," he said. "It was to begin itself, wasn't it? And I have an uncomfortable suspicion that you hunt this kind of treasure by turning round and going the other way. So I think you'd better run out and find the Urchin, and I'll get back to my inscriptions."

The Urchin was Fiona's principal ally; a troublesome ally, owing to his propensity for throwing stones. She found him now on the shore, steadily bombarding a shore lark, that would move a little way out of range and then sit down again, affording a splendid target. Luckily the enthusiasm of the persecutor in pursuit was well matched by the inaccuracy of his aim.

"Urchin," she called out, "if you hurt that bird the Little People will take you; I thought I'd knocked that into you all right, even if you are English and slow in the uptake."

"All right," said the Urchin with a grin. "We conquered you, anyway."

"As a matter of fact," said the girl, "it was we who annexed you. If your people were as bad shots as you, Urchin, it must have been quite easy. You can't hit a bird sitting."

"Can't I?" said the Urchin. "You watch." Another fling, and horrors! the shore lark rolled over, twittering helplessly and miserably.

Fiona was across the rocks like a young goat; and when the Urchin, contrite but defiant, arrived, she had the wounded bird in her hands and was holding it to her breast, feeling gently for its hurt. It lay quite still, panting, and watching her with quick bright eyes.

"Broken wing," she said. "I believe it will mend. Urchin, you are a mere beast. You'd better go home; I don't want ever to see you again."

The Urchin turned scarlet.

"That's just like a girl," he said. "First you tell me I can't hit the old bird, which is the same thing as telling me to hit it; and then when I do hit it you turn round on me and call names; and all the time you're just as bad as I am." And the Urchin turned and stalked off, an heroic figure with the mien of a Marcus Curtius about to save his country by leaping into the gulf. Unhappily there was a real gulf, and the boy, head in air, rolled neatly into it, and emerged from between two rocks, dripping and no longer heroic, rubbing a torn stocking and a scraped shin.

It was too much for Fiona's gravity.

"Urchin," she called, "come back here, quick." And as the unhappy Urchin stood in doubt, hither and thither dividing the swift mind, she slid over the rocks and caught him. "My fault," she said, "and I'm sorry all the way through. Now I'll mend you first, and then we must mend the bird."

"And then what'll we do?" said the boy. "Let's do something harmless for a bit, hunt for shells or shrimps or . . ."

"Treasure," suggested Fiona, rather shyly. And by the time they had reached the house, and she had repaired the Urchin, and disposed the wounded bird as comfortably as possible, the boy had been put in possession of the essential facts of the case.

"Mar-vellous," was the Urchin's comment. "Now, don't you see, Fiona? you can have your treasure when we find it, and I'll have the Spanish treasure when we find it, and there we both are. I want lots and lots and lots of those doubloons."

"What for?" said Fiona.

"Gun," said the Urchin. "Donald Ruadh has an old gun which he would sell me for two pounds. He says one barrel shoots all right sometimes. And I would use the rest of the doubloons to buy cartridges, and then I could kill curlews."

"You little wretch," said the girl. "You won't kill my curlews while I'm about. And anyhow your old gun would probably blow you up first. And anyhow you haven't got the doubloons yet. And they're not yours if you do find them."

"Whose would they be?" asked the Urchin.

"I suppose my father's," said Fiona. "But it depends on which cave they were in."