"Yours, or that boy's there, whichever you like," said the whale. "But only one, only one." For about two seconds Fiona did some hard mental drill. Then she said: "Will you please tell me where the Urchin can find his treasure?" "You do have luck," said the finner. "Think of it, then. O you little fishes, think of it. If you'd asked the other, I didn't know the answer. Wouldn't have got an answer, and my tail all scraped for nothing. And this one, my great-great-grandmother saw it all, and nobody knows here but me and the seals and one man, and he's too fat to count. West cave, Scargill Island; and bring you luck, my dear. Will it run to some tobacco?" "Thank you so much," said Fiona politely. "And I'm sorry I haven't any tobacco with me. But if you could wait a few minutes . . ." "Shiver it, I'm scraping again," said the whale. "No tobacco and very few barnacles in this world. O my grandmother's flukes, I might as well be a bottlenose!" Once more the water boiled, and beneath it the huge black body shot away for the open sea. "Fiona," said the boy, "do you really think it's cricket?" "What isn't cricket?" she asked. "Fiona," he said, "I've been a brother to you. I have done all the things a brother ought to do. I have taught you to throw like a boy. I have pinched you for new clothes. I have called you names, to make you good-tempered. I have made remarks on your personal appearance, to prevent your being vain. I have even fought with you, solely for your good. And this is how you repay me. The other day you pretended to be talking to a shore lark; to-day it was an old whale, who spouted and banged his tail on the rock. If it's a joke, I don't see it. If it's not a joke, do go into a lunatic asylum, and let me find a simpler job." Fiona tossed up mentally between hitting him and laughing; it came down laughing. "Urchin," she said, "it's all right. I don't understand it much better than you do, but it has something to do with this bracelet of mine. I can really understand them and they can understand me. If you doubt my word, we will fight a duel with the boat stretchers, and I will bury you in the sand here afterwards." "Oh, I believe you when you talk like that," said the Urchin; "only it's worse than the Latin grammar. _Psittacus loquitur_, "the parrot talks"; but this thing seemed to be a whale; it was very like one." "It was a whale," said Fiona. "He said his great-great-grandmother had seen the Spanish captain land his doubloons, and that it was in the west cave on Scargill Island." "That means the big cave at the end facing the sea," said the boy. "The cave that no one has ever got to the end of," said Fiona. "The cave that's haunted," said the boy. "But of course it's haunted; it's the ghosts of the Spaniards. Silly of us not to have guessed." Fiona had a hazy recollection of things her father used to say.