t does
now."

"I quite agree with you, Owen; we have very little cause to fear, go
we'll go below and take our breakfasts with good appetite," said the
captain, the steward having just announced that the meal was ready.

On returning on deck they could perceive no change in the relative
position of the vessels; but as the day drew on the wind dropped, and
the stranger appeared to gain on them. Still they made some way, and
could distinguish the Round Tower and ruined house on Dalkey Island, off
the Wicklow coast, when it fell perfectly calm, and though the Bay of
Dublin was almost in sight, they were unable to reach it. The old
captain took many a glance through his spy-glass at the ship astern.

"She looks more like an English man-of-war than a Frenchman," he said to
Owen; "see what you make of her."

"I agree with you, sir," said Owen. "She is standing after us simply
because she is bound to the same port, and if so, we need not trouble
ourselves further about her; anyway, we shall be safe at anchor before
long, and an enemy would scarcely venture into the bay to cut us out."

Still Owen, not being altogether free from anxiety, walked the deck the
greater part of the night, waiting for a breeze. It came at length,
towards the end of the middle watch, and as before, astern. He had lost
sight of the stranger during the hours of darkness, but when dawn broke,
as the _Ouzel Galley_ was off Kingstown, he saw her coming up rapidly
not a mile away. With the increasing daylight he made her out, however,
to be undoubtedly a British man-of-war.

"No mistake as to that point," observed Captain Tracy, who joined him on
deck; "I thought so from the first."

What was their astonishment, therefore, when the corvette fired a gun
towards them. The _Ouzel Galley_ still stood on, when the sound of
another gun came booming over the calm sea.

"It is the signal to us to heave to. We must obey," said Owen; "though
they perhaps think that we are too strong-handed, and wish to press some
of our men."

"There's no help for it," observed the old captain; "better at the end
of a voyage than the beginning of one, as far as the owners are
concerned; but it is a cruel thing for the poor men to be carried away
from their families just as they are expecting to get home."

The yards were braced up, and the ship hove to. In a short time the
corvette, getting abreast of her, lowered a boat and quickly pulled
alongside, with a lieut