The Legend of the Phantom Highwayman by Tom McCaughren Read Free Book Online Page B

they tiptoed along a dimly lit passageway. Somewhere ahead they could hear the clink of bottles. Following the noise, they made their way down steps and around corners, until they found themselves looking down into a large cavern. In the middle of the floor was a big machine in which bottles were whirled around to be filled, capped and labelled, in a dazzling display of movement and precision. Elsewhere in the cavern, workmen were piling up crates which presumably they had brought down from the lorry.
    As Tapser and Cowlick tried to take it all in, they were amazed to hear the sound of a boat’s engine, and switching their gaze to a cave beyond the bottling plant, they saw a boat nudging its way in.
    Opening an iron gate, Whaler and Scamp went out to meet it, and when it was moored tightly the boatmen handed them up crate after crate of bottles which they brought back and placed on the floor of the large cavern.
    â€˜That’s one of Max’s lobster boats,’ said Cowlick.
    â€˜Well they haven’t been catching lobsters, that’s for sure,’ said Tapser. ‘Do you think they’re the smugglers?’
    â€˜I don’t know. But it’s all very strange.’
    â€˜You can say that again. Come on. We’d better get out of here before they come back up.’
    There was no sign of the Alsatians, so they raced across the darkened grounds and a few minutes later dropped down outside the wire fence. Róisín and Rachel, who had been hiding nearby, rushed over to meet them, and Prince barked a greeting.
    â€˜Quiet boy,’ urged Tapser, and they all hunkered down and looked back to see if anyone had heard. No one had, and they hurried away.
    As they walked back through the town, Tapser and Cowlick told the girls what had happened and what they had seen.
    â€˜We couldn’t keep the Alsatians up there any longer,’ said Róisín. ‘We were terrified they were going to tear you to pieces.’
    Cowlick gave a wry smile. ‘They would have caught us too, if it hadn’t been for your warning.’
    â€˜And Scamp would have caught us,’ Tapser added, ‘if it hadn’t been for the bats.’
    The girls laughed when they heard about that.
    â€˜Poor Scamp,’ giggled Rachel. ‘He must have got a terrible fright.’
    â€˜Aye,’ laughed Cowlick. ‘I think they flew into his face.’
    â€˜Yugh,’ shivered Róisín. ‘I wouldn’t fancy that.’
    â€˜Bats are harmless,’ said Rachel.
    â€˜I know. But still. It’s the thought of it.’
    â€˜Well, they saved our bacon anyway,’ said Cowlick.
    â€˜Aye. I didn’t fancy the thought of Whaler getting his big hands on us,’ said Tapser.
    â€˜Do you think Max is involved in this smuggling business then?’ asked Róisín.
    â€˜There’s something very funny going on over there,’ said Tapser.
    â€˜Why do you say that?’ asked Rachel.
    â€˜Well for a start,’ Cowlick told her, ‘that lorry had no lights on.’
    â€˜And Whaler didn’t want to put the lights on in the yard,’ recalled Tapser.
    â€˜I wonder why?’ said Róisín.
    â€˜Unless it was a lorry-load of poteen they were smuggling down from the mountains,’ said Cowlick.
    â€˜Maybe they were just empties that had been collected,’ suggested Rachel.
    â€˜Then why bring them in at this time of night?’ argued Tapser. ‘And with the lights switched off. No, there’s something funny about the way they were acting.’
    â€˜Not to mention the boat,’ Cowlick reminded them.
    â€˜That is funny,’ Rachel agreed. ‘Do you think it was poteen too?’
    â€˜Sure they wouldn’t be bringing poteen down from the mountains that way,’ asserted Róisín.
    â€˜And it was properly bottled and all,’ Tapser recalled.
    â€˜Just like the bottles from the machine.’
    â€˜Well the