“You are not a stranger to this ship, Miss Tracy,” observed the pirate, as he handed Norah on deck. “I regret that I was compelled to capture her, and to deprive her former master, my worthy friend Owen Massey, of his command.” He spoke in a somewhat sarcastic tone, which Norah observed, but she wisely made no reply. “You will be safer in the cabin, where you will find yourselves at home,” he continued; “my brave fellows are somewhat lawless, and it is as well to keep out of their sight.” The pirate, as he spoke, led the way into the cabin. As they entered it, he requested that she would consider herself its mistress. “My black steward will attend to your wants, and will bring you whatever you may order. I have now to see to the navigation of the ship, so that I cannot for the present enjoy your society,” he said.
Having led Norah to a sofa and desired his other guests, as he choose to call them, to be seated, he hurried from the cabin.
The light from a handsome silver lamp hung in the usual position showed them that no change had been made in its arrangements since the Ouzel Galley had sailed from Waterford.
“We might have been worse off, faith! but it’s somewhat trying to find one’s self on board one’s own ship in the character of a prisoner,” observed Captain Tracy. “However, our captor appears inclined to behave with as much courtesy as can be expected, and as I hope we shall not again be interrupted, I wish, Norah, you would try to obtain some sleep. O’Brien and I will watch by you, and you will be the better able to endure what you may have to go through.”
“I cannot sleep; I don’t wish to sleep,” murmured poor Norah. “I should only dream of the dreadful events which have occurred.”
After some persuasion, however, she consented to try and obtain the rest she so much needed, and in spite of her assertions, her father saw that she had dropped off into a calm slumber. He and Captain O’Brien could now speak more freely than they had hitherto done. Their firm resolution was not, on any account, to be parted from her. They had each retained their pistols, which they had concealed in their pockets, and Captain O’Brien vowed that, should any violence be threatened, he would shoot O’Harrall, and trust to win over the piratical crew by promising them the most ample rewards.
“If we kill their chief, the fellows will be awed, and we shall have time to throw the bait in their mouths; for the chances are that many of them will be glad enough to escape from the perilous course they are now compelled to follow, and if we can gain over some, the rest will not long hold out,” he observed.
Captain Tracy thought his friend’s plan too desperate, but he was at length won over to consent to it should O’Harrall’s behaviour render some such proceeding necessary.
By a compass fixed in the forepart of the cabin, they saw that the vessel was standing to the westward, and that the wind must have shifted, as she appeared to be directly before it. After running on this course for some distance, they found that she was then hauled up to the northward. From this she appeared to deviate but slightly, sometimes a point or two to the eastward, and sometimes to the westward. They thus surmised that she was threading her way between reefs with which the pirates must have been well acquainted. Daylight at length streamed through the cabin windows, and as the sun rose above the horizon, they saw his rays glancing across the tiny wavelets which rippled the surface of the water, showing that a moderate breeze was blowing, and that the ship was under the lee of an island, which impeded the progress of the undulations rolling in from the wide ocean.
“Wherever we are going, it would be a hard matter, I suspect, without an experienced pilot, to get out again,” observed Captain O’Brien.