The Ouzel Galley stood on in mid-channel; the well-known landmarks, church steeples, country-seats, and castles on either side were recognised; Credda Head, a long, high point at the entrance of the harbour, was neared, when Duncannon Fort came into view. Still the daring privateer followed as if her bold captain did not yet despair of overtaking the chase. The wind, as the captain had hoped it would do, held fair, blowing over the low land on the east side of the harbour; once up with Duncannon Fort the Ouzel Galley would be safe, both from the privateer herself and from an attack by her boats. At length Credda Head was rounded.
“Hurrah!” cried Gerald, who, not having to attend to the navigation of the ship, was watching the privateer, “she’s afraid of standing on further—she’s about; but, hillo!—she has hoisted English colours.”
“No proof that she is not French, though,” answered the captain; “it is simply to deceive the people on shore.”
“At all events, she’s standing out of the harbour again, and won’t do us any mischief,” cried Gerald.
“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed the captain, “we’re safe at last.” And the long breath he drew clearly showed how anxious he had been.
“A boat coming off from under the Head!” sang out Dan from forward. The topsail sheets were let fly, the courses trailed up to allow the boat to come alongside, and a river pilot stopped on deck.
“Welcome back to Old Ireland!” he exclaimed, as he shook the captain’s hand. “Shure, it’s a pleasure to see the Ouzel Galley again, for it’s long we’ve been looking for her, and many began to say that she was lost, or taken by the French.”
“We very nearly were so, but we managed to take some of these same gentlemen instead,” answered the captain with a laugh, to which he could now give vent; “and only just now we had a narrow squeak for it. What do you think of yonder ship, Pat?”
“Of course, she’s an English man-of-war,” answered the pilot; “we’ve been expecting one in here for some days past, and we thought that craft was her. To say the truth, we were going on board her; for, shure, the Ouzel Galley knows her way up to George’s Quay by herself.”
“Had you done so, Pat, you’d have been carried off, and made to serve as pilot on board a French ship till the end of the war,” answered Captain Tracy.