“The chances are against him, Miss Ellen, but it is hard to say what may happen,” answered Captain O’Brien. “Captain Olding is not the man, as I have observed before, to let an enemy slip through his fingers; in less than half an hour he will get near enough to the Frenchman to send his shot on board, and he’ll stick tightly to him, no fear of that.”
Ellen held her breath, as she at length saw the ships approaching each other. A puff of white smoke issued from the starboard bow of the Champion. The Coquille returned it from her stern-chasers, but the shot fell harmlessly into the water. Again and again the Champion fired; it was evident that she could only bring her foremost gun to bear, unless by keeping away and thereby losing ground.
“Thurot knows the coast as well as, or better than, Olding, and is unwilling to lose the advantage of being to windward,” exclaimed Captain O’Brien. “See, he keeps his luff, and the Champion is compelled to do the same; I thought it would be so. The Champion is losing the breeze, which has hitherto been in her favour, and if she doesn’t manage to wing the Frenchman, the fellow, who has evidently a fast pair of heels, will slip by between her and the land. See, she’s not going to let him do that. Hurrah! she’s kept away; there go her broadside guns. They’ll have told, I hope, with effect on the Frenchman. No, by George! every spar is standing,” exclaimed the captain, as the smoke from the Champion’s broadside cleared away. She immediately again came to the wind. The ships were still too far apart for the shot to do much damage; they both stood on for some time longer without firing, and were now so greatly increasing their distance from Red Head that the three spectators could but imperfectly discern what took place. Again wreaths of smoke circled above the side of the Champion, and flashes were seen to issue from that of the Coquille, as, imitating the English ship, she put up her helm and kept away across the bows of the latter.
“Thurot has made up his mind to run for it,” cried the captain; “he’s squaring away his yards, and Olding’s after him. The Frenchman has no stomach for a fight, that’s very certain; those privateersmen prefer plunder to glory. If Olding doesn’t ply him briskly with his guns, the chase will get away after all. I had hopes of seeing the Coquille brought in here as a prize; we could then have afforded to forgive her captain the trick he played us.”
In vain the captain and his companions waited for any event to show them which ship was likely to be the victor. They were both at length hull down, their masts and spars standing apparently uninjured. Poor Ellen had watched them with intense interest. How long it might be before her anxiety could be removed, she could not tell; that the Champion would be taken, she did not believe possible. But, alas! many of those on board might be killed or wounded; several days might pass before the Champion could come into Cork harbour. With straining eyes she gazed towards the two ships gradually become less and less distinct.
“Come, Ferris—come, Miss Ellen, my dear—we must be on our homeward voyage, or our friends will become alarmed, and it will be reported that we have been carried off by the Frenchman,” said Captain O’Brien.
Very unwillingly Ellen left the height and accompanied her father and the captain to the boat. He had still some distance to pull, though he kept a look-out for a larger boat or a sailing hooker on her way up to Waterford. At length a little high-sterned craft was seen standing out of one of the many small bays which indent the western shore of the harbour. The captain stood up, and shouted and waved, and the hooker, hauling her wind, hove to to await their coming. The skipper, knowing he should be amply recompensed, was delighted to receive them on board and to take their boat in tow; and Ellen, seated on a sail, was wafted up the river in a very different style to that of Cleopatra in her barge, as far as the mouth of the Suir; when, the wind failing, Captain O’Brien, with the assistance of one of the crew of the hooker, pulled up the remainder of the distance to Waterford in the Coquille’s dinghy.
It was late in the evening. As they approached the quay they were warmly cheered by a number of the townspeople who had heard of their adventure, information of the departure of the French privateer having already been brought up to Waterford. It was soon evident to Mr Ferris that some other event of importance had occurred.
“What has happened, my friends?” he inquired.
“Shure, yer honour, one of the French officers has been caught hiding away in your garden,” answered Dan Connor, who was one of the nearest to him among the crowd. “The thief of the world! he made a mighty fine fight of it; but we ran in on him, after he had cut down three or four of us, two being kilt entirely—but we knocked his sword out of his hand and seized him, and he’s lodged comfortably in the Ring Tower, out of which he isn’t likely to get in a hurry.”