Doubter, who was waiting at the wooden bridge, nearly threw a fit when he saw the gate, but I soon persuaded him of the sense in taking it. In no time at all, the raft was ready, and having anchored it to the bridge with a piece of leftover rope, we gathered round and lifted it into the water. Immediately it was caught in the brown, swiftly flowing floodwater, the mooring rope sprang taut, and to our delight it bobbed buoyantly a few yards down the bank.

  It seemed for one awful moment, however, that our plan was doomed to failure before it began. Just as we were boarding the raft, an angry shout rang out from the Whin Hill.

  ‘It’s Mr Stockman!’ cried Doubter.

  ‘What’s he shouting about?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Curly. ‘But he seems very annoyed at something.’

  ‘Crikey, look!’ yelled Totey, and turning around we followed his pointing finger. Our hearts sank at what we saw.

  ‘It’s Juno’s horses,’ cried Doubter. ‘They’re in the corn. What are we going to do?’

  ‘There’s only one thing we can do,’ I yelled. ‘Cast off, Doubter, cast off!’

  For once Doubter didn’t hesitate. Untying the rope, he raced back to the raft as Curly held it steady with the steering pole. Willing hands hauled him aboard, Curly withdrew the pole, and we were away.

  11. VOYAGE TO DANGER

  The current had taken us about two hundred yards from the wooden bridge when Mr Stockman came running down to it. As always when he’s working, the hardy little white-haired farmer had his shirt sleeves rolled up and the neck wide open. He paused on the middle of the bridge and brandishing a fist, yelled at us, ‘Hey! Did you boys open that gate up there?’

  The only answer he got was a bark from Prince, who was standing with this front paws on the end bar of the raft looking back.

  Crossing over, Mr Stockman appeared for a moment as if he was going to come after us. He hesitated. We could see he was trying to make up his mind whether to chase us or the horses. In the end, he decided on the horses and, with a bellow of ‘Bad luck to you!’, turned and ran towards the top of the field where Juno’s horses were in the corn.

  On board the raft we breathed a sigh of relief, al-though we still felt a bit shaken by what had happened.

  ‘Wait until he finds out we took the gate,’ said Doubter.

  ‘He’ll really be hopping mad,’ said Curly.

  ‘How was I to know Juno’s horses would come in?’ I asked irritably.

  ‘They must have been grazing on the side of the road,’ said Totey.

  ‘How was I to know that?’ I said. ‘I thought I was doing him a good turn taking down the gate.’

  Curly shook his head. ‘He’ll never believe it.’

  ‘He’ll have to,’ I said. ‘Anyway, we can worry about that when the time comes. We’ve more important things to worry about now.’

  Wielding the ash pole with growing skill, Curly steered the raft down the middle of the swollen river. Slowly the sounds from the farmyard faded, leaving a glorious peace that was broken only by the chirping of the birds and the occasional cry of a startled water-hen as it rose from the rushes and flew ahead, its long feet trailing the water. Our thoughts, however, were as dark and troubled as the muddy currents beneath us. Cowlick was constantly on our minds, and fears for his safety kept flooding into a jumble of thoughts about the treasure and the many things we couldn’t explain.

  Almost before we knew it, we came to a bend where the river is wide and rocky. In spite of the rain the rocks were still visible, and we knew we were going to have a rough passage. With eyes glued on the first of them, we held Prince and braced ourselves. We hit it with a jarring boom that sent a shudder through all four barrels. The raft slewed from side to side in a crazy zig-zag as it bounced from one rock to another, and we held on tightly until at last it came to a halt, the left side tilted in the air, the other buried in the rushing water.

  ‘I thought we were all in for a ducking there,’ gasped Curly as we scrambled up the dry side of the raft.

  ‘I very nearly went in,’ said Doubter.

  ‘Me too,’ said Curly. ‘The jolt almost knocked the pole out of my hands.’

  ‘Did you hear the boom, boom, boom?’ asked Totey.

  ‘We hit the rocks hard, all right,’ I said. ‘I wonder if it did any damage?’

  Cautiously shifting our weight, we examined the ends of the barrels that were sticking up out of the water. There were a few big dents in them, but as far as we could see, none of them had been holed.

  ‘I think we’re okay,’ I said, ‘but we’re going to have a job getting over these rocks. Come on. There’s only one way to do it.’

  Fortunately we had ended up on rocks not far from the bank, where the water wasn’t too deep. Leaving Totey on board to hold Prince and our Wellingtons, we dropped over the side, and with the water gushing around us began heaving the raft over the rocks. It was an awkward job, and once Doubter nearly disappeared into a hole, but we persevered and eventually got the raft over into deeper water.

  Soon we were sailing along nicely again, past the alders and the otter pool, round the back of Wariff Hill and through the Cotton Bog.

  Everything went well until we came to where our river joins the main river that flows into the estate. All of a sudden we found ourselves going too fast. Because of the rain, the flow of our river as it was sucked into the other one was much greater than we had expected. Again we realised there was nothing we could do except hold on and hope for the best.

  With Prince firmly wedged between my knees, we gripped the edge of the raft and held on for dear life. We were at the mercy of the current as it swept us out into the main river. The raft spun around, dipped dangerously in the swirling water and shot towards the far bank at a dizzying speed. Somehow we held on. Boom! We rebounded with a bang and spun out into the middle of the river, there to resume a nice smooth course to our great relief.

  Our relief, however, was short-lived. We discovered to our horror that all four of us were not, in fact, on board! Totey was missing, and there was no sign of him in the dark, rushing water.

  ‘Pull in, pull in,’ I cried.

  Curly responded immediately, plunging the pole into the bottom and throwing his full weight on to it. However, he hadn’t reckoned on the faster flowing current and the muddy bed of the river. The pole stuck fast, the raft drew away, and for one terrifying moment he found himself stretched between the two. Then, to the utter amazement of everyone, including himself, he was left high and dry, clinging to the pole in mid-river!

  I realised there was only one thing to do. We were a good few feet from the bank, and we could never jump it. Instead, I lifted Prince and lobbed him as far as I could. He swam ashore and shook himself.

  ‘Quick, Prince, catch,’ I yelled, and hurled the mooring rope towards him. He snapped and missed, but flung himself after the end of the rope as it snaked away through the grass, and caught it. The raft immediately swung in to the bank, and Doubter and I jumped ashore.

  Curly was shouting for help, and his plight would have been funny if it hadn’t been so serious. He couldn’t hold on for long, and if he fell in we knew he would drown as he couldn’t swim. We had to get to him and fast.

  ‘We must get the raft out to him,’ I cried to Doubter. ‘Come on! Give me a hand.’

  Grabbing the rope, we began dragging the raft back up the river. It was a heavy pull against the current, and the raft kept jamming against the bank. To add to the confusion, Prince was running up and down, barking loudly.

  ‘Hurry,’ yelled Curly. ‘Hurry, for goodness sake. The pole’s starting to slip.’

  ‘Okay, hold on a minute,’ I shouted.

  We had the raft almost opposite him now, but we needed it above him. There was no time to lose; the pole was slipping and he was hanging dangerously close to the water.

  ‘Right,’ I told Doubter, ‘that’s far enough. Hold it until I get on. Now, give a good shove.’

  Still holding on to the rope, Doubter put his foot to the side of the raft and shoved as hard as he could. The raft shot out into the middle of the river, the current caught it and swept it down towards Curly. Doubter, however, had shoved the raft too hard. It was now heading straight for the pole. If it hit it, Curly would be knocked into the water. Fortunately, Doubter realised this too. He pulled on the rope. The raft narrowly missed the pole and sailed directly under Curly. I quickly pulled him aboard, and the pole came away quite easily with him.

  On reaching the bank, Curly threw his arms around Prince and hugged him gratefully. ‘Boy, I thought I was done for there,’ he gasped.

  ‘You would have been, too, if it hadn’t been for Prince,’ I said, giving the collie a well-earned pat. ‘Are you all right?’ Curly swallowed hard and nodded, then sat up with a jerk. ‘What about Totey?’

  In our panic we had forgotten all about poor Totey!

  ‘What about Totey?’ asked a familiar voice.

  We swung around, and once again gave a huge sigh of relief. There, walking down the bank towards us, his hands in his pockets and a wide grin on his freckled face, was none other than Totey himself. He wasn’t even wet. Eagerly we gathered around him to find out what had happened. It had been something very simple really. When the raft hit the bank, Totey had lost his grip and was catapulted off into the field beside it.

  ‘So that’s where you went?’ I smiled, giving him a friendly wigging. ‘We thought for a minute there you’d been drowned.’

  We sat down to get our breath back and plan our next move.

  ‘What now?’ Doubter asked me.

  ‘I say we press on. The sooner we get to the estate the better, okay?’

  In spite of the frightening experiences we had just been through, all three of them nodded.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Now the chances are we’ll have to hide out on the estate for some time, and we have to eat. So Doubter, you take a turn at the pole. Curly and I will put out a line and see what we can catch.’

  We boarded the raft, and a short time later sailed under the bridge on the Cotton Bog Road. Then almost before we knew it, we had gone under the bridge on the boundary of the estate and were gliding quietly through the heavily wooded grounds.

  It was warm and sunny and very peaceful in there. On either side of us the sun sparkled on leathery rhododendron leaves, and the only sounds were the gurgling of the water and the cawing of rooks high in the trees. Somehow, phantoms and plots and treasure all seemed very unreal in such a peaceful setting. Yet nothing could be more real than the cold hard fact that Cowlick had disappeared, or the solid gold guinea which I fingered thoughtfully in my trouser pocket.

  Knowing that Mr Moxley and his son Dan would be patrolling the estate more than ever after the attempt to steal the paintings, we talked in whispers and then only when necessary, and kept a close watch on both banks of the river. We saw no one and, we felt sure, no one saw us as we sailed out into the lake. The only movement came from a small wooded island in the middle of the lake. Birds of all kinds were fluttering around its closely-knit treetops, and swans and ducks and seagulls were swimming around its shores. Otherwise we had the lake to ourselves as we floated not far from the bank. It was plain sailing now – or so we thought. How were we to know that at that very moment we were sailing into the greatest danger?

  An excited bark from Prince and a shout from Totey switched our attention from the island to the left side of the raft.

  ‘There’s something on the line,’ Totey was saying. ‘Look, there it goes again.’

  So there was, and what a surprise! Our makeshift line had been the furthest thing from our thoughts. Now it was as tight as a bow-string and slicing the water like a knife. Bending down, and at the same time holding on to me to keep from falling in, Doubter reached out, twirled it around his forefinger, and slowly drew it towards him.

  Whatever was on the end of the line was well and truly hooked. As my father always says, ‘You can’t beat a worm for bait when a river’s in flood.’

  ‘Boy, it must be a big one,’ said Doubter.

  ‘Is it a trout?’ Totey asked him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, ‘but it’s a big one, whatever it is.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a salmon,’ said Curly.

  ‘It’s hardly a salmon,’ I said, ‘or it would be away with the line like a shot.’

  ‘What is it, then?’ asked Totey.

  ‘Could be just an eel,’ I said. ‘You know the way they curl around a line. You’d think you’d hooked the Loch Ness monster.’

  ‘Crikey, it must be a big one all right,’ gasped Totey. ‘Look, it’s pulling the raft!’

  We looked around in disbelief, but we knew at once there was something in what he had said. The bank had slipped away behind us. We were moving all right – and in the wrong direction!

  I swung around. ‘It’s not the fish that’s pulling us!’

  ‘What then?’ asked Curly.

  ‘Listen, can you not hear it?’

  ‘The Devil’s Cup!’ cried Doubter.

  I bit my lip. ‘It’s the Cup all right. The water’s flowing into it – and it’s pulling us with it …’

  There was a horrified silence. We had completely forgotten about the Devil’s Cup. Now we realised that with all the heavy rain and the river in flood, much more water than usual was spilling over into it, setting up a powerful current all around.

  ‘Quick, Curly,’ I shouted. ‘Try and swing us clear of the current.’

  Curly, who had been holding the pole for Doubter, immediately, but with more caution than the last time, plunged it into the water. Instead of sticking to the bottom, however, the pole went right down. He let it go just in time and it disappeared under the surface, only to bob up again a yard or two away. ‘It’s too deep,’ he cried. ‘It’s too deep.’

  Prince, who was standing on the front of the raft looking towards the Devil’s Cup, was barking loudly, and we could see he sensed the danger it held for us.

  ‘Maybe Prince can do it again,’ suggested Doubter.

  ‘We’re too far from the bank,’ I said, ‘but he might be able to swim for help if we could throw him clear of the current.’ Calling the collie to the back of the raft, I pointed to the bank and urged him, ‘Go seek’m, boy, seek’m.’ Doubter gave me a hand, and we swung him in towards the shore as far as we could. Up he popped, paddled round once in a small circle, and made a beeline for dry land. Anxiously we watched him scramble out, but instead of racing for help, he shook the water from his coat and stood barking at us.

  Our hearts sank, and Totey cried, ‘What are we going to do now? We’re going to be drowned. We’re all going to be drowned.’

  I tried to reassure him. ‘Nobody’s going to be drowned. Not if we keep our heads. We’ll get out of this – somehow.’ However, he continued to cry. I couldn’t fool him any more than I could fool Doubter or Curly, or for that matter myself. Slowly, but surely, we were being drawn closer and closer to that awful Cup. The roar of water as it plunged fifty feet or more to the bottom was growing louder and louder. We could see no way of escape. The only outlet was the narrow tunnel at the bottom of the giant bowl which carried the water away beneath the estate to goodness knows where. Some people said it came out under the boating lake, but no one was sure if it ever came out anywhere. One thing was certain; nothing could survive being swept down it. And on the far side of the Cup rose the spike-topped wall which we could never hope to climb, even if we could reach it. We were trapped.

  Grimly we gripped the edge of the raft, our eyes riveted on that gaping hole that was swallowing up the lake. We couldn’t take our eyes off it, and you may not believe this, but I could swear that as we watched, mesmerised, we could see in the cloud of spray that hung over the Cup a form – the white wispy form of that poor girl Old Daddy Armstrong was telling us about – a pale, pathetic figure, her long silken hair rising and falling around her shoulders, a slender hand outstretched towards us … beckoning us … luring us ever closer to the doom that had been hers so many years before …

  * * *

  As we were sucked towards the boiling cauldron we could see that wispy form of the girl as plainly as anything … one minute. Next minute, when I wrenched my eyes away and told the boys to snap out of it, she vanished in a wafting sort of way among the millions of tiny floating drops of water, so that we wondered if what we had seen was really her at all, or just the rising clouds of white spray.

  Totey was sobbing. The other two, faces deathly pale, looked at me as if my voice had come from far away. What could I do? I had never felt so helpless in all my life. Yet I knew I must do something. Anything! In desperation I threw another frightened glance at the Devil’s Cup, and spotted something on the rim of it – two iron spikes about a yard apart and jutting about a foot above the water. In those two spikes I suddenly saw a chance of survival. A slim chance, but there was no other.

  ‘Quickly,’ I yelled above the roar of the water. ‘Steer for those spikes. Use your hands and steer for those spikes.’

  That snapped Curly and Doubter out of their trance and they began splashing with their hands for dear life. At the same time I threw myself down at the front of the raft and reaching into the water unscrewed the bung from the first barrel. Almost immediately the barrel began filling up, and the nose of the raft dipped lower and lower until the water was lapping around the wood. This was exactly what I wanted as it would help to keep the raft from being washed over the spikes. Or so I hoped.

  We were almost on them now. The gap narrowed. I reached out, caught hold of both spikes, and pulled the raft against them. I was half afraid the current would sweep the end of the raft round and over into the Devil’s Cup, but it held. For a moment I looked down into the swirling, foaming torrents that raged round and round the bottom of the giant Cup. It was frightening. Terribly frightening. I felt dizzy and looked away. Now and then the raft lurched dangerously, and I knew it could only be a matter of minutes before we were swept

  over.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ yelled Doubter.