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live in a field and eat grass.’
    Jack was up on the ladder. He came down. ‘Crispis, go and give all the boys some water. Robert and I will manage the lead.’
    ‘Every boy must perform his allotted task,’ shouted William.
    ‘Not if a friend will do it for him,’ said Jack. ‘Go on, Crispis.’
    The tiny boy smiled with happiness. William scowled.
    ‘Do not provoke William,’ said Robert. ‘I do not trust him.’
    ‘There’s no one watching us,’ said Jack.
    ‘The Eyebat is always watching us,’ said Peter, coming across with a pile of wood for the furnace.
    From across the room the Eyebat was gleaming evilly from its jar. Crispis came trotting back with two brimming wooden cups of water. He looked at Jack the way a sunflower looks at the sun.
    ‘Thank you, Crispis,’ said Jack, and gently turned the little boy round and sent him off. ‘Don’t forget the others.’
    Robert splashed some of his water on his face and neck.
    ‘Have you always been an orphan, Robert?’ asked Jack.
    ‘I must have had a mother once, for I wasn’t made in a bottle like the Creature,’ said Robert. ‘But I came here from a ship where I was a cabin boy.’
    ‘A ship!’ said Jack. ‘Did you fight any pirates?’
    ‘Yes, and we did,’ replied Robert. ‘Sailing off Cadiz the Spaniards attacked us, but we fought them off, and when our guns and our ammunition and our men were exhausted, a pirate ship came and plundered us. Pirates are clever. I’d rather be a pirate than anything.’
    ‘When we escape, let’s be pirates,’ said Jack.
    ‘And get a ship and go to sea!’
    ‘And find the treasure . . .’
    ‘And I’ll have a parrot and a pair of pistols.’
    ‘And we won’t have to turn lead into gold because we’ll find all the gold in the world . . . when we escape.’
    Jack was laughing, but now Robert had stopped laughing, and his face was serious and sad. ‘Not anything can escape, Jack. There is no escape, that’s what you don’t understand. This place, the Dark House, it’s not just a house like other houses are houses. It’s as if . . . it’s like living inside a person – the Magus is this house, Jack, we are living inside him.’
    Jack was silent. He thought back to when he had woken up in the well and wondered if he were inside a whale.
    ‘How are we living inside him, Robert?’
    Robert looked around, nervous, but the other boys were all busy at their work, except for Peter, who came closer. Robert said, ‘I am the eldest here, nearly thirteen, and I have been here the longest. When I came, I was brought off the ship because my master had sold me, and I didn’t think much of it, but when the cart brought me to this house, the man driving the cart, all fearful and watchful, said to me, “Boy, they have sold you to the Devil. I tell you true, this house does not exist! Look for it and it does not exist.” ’
    ‘But it does exist,’ protested Jack, ‘we are in it, and we have both been outside it, and there is a courtyard, and last night the Magus came and went. How could he come and go if there was nothing here but a phantom?’
    ‘It exists in his mind,’ said Robert, ‘and so do we.’
    ‘I am Jack!’ said Jack out loud, and William looked round.
    ‘You are Robert! There’s Peter.’
    ‘But he is the Magus,’ said Robert. ‘I can think of a house, but not so that you can go inside it. He can think of a house, and we are inside it – all of us.’
    ‘Even if that is true,’ said Jack, ‘and I don’t believe it is true, we have a life that is not his life.’
    ‘Do you think so?’ said Robert. ‘What life do we have that is not his life?’
    Jack shook Robert by the shoulders. ‘Stop it! Whatever this house is, we will escape. Now tell me something I want to know.
    Is there such a thing as, well, something like a dragon in here?’
    Robert’s face went white with fear. ‘Who told you there was a dragon?’
    ‘I know there aren’t any dragons,’ said Jack, ‘but I am