he _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