"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. "Maybe you're right, captain; but see, she carries the English flag, and no Frenchman would have the impudence to come into our harbour," said the pilot. "That gentleman says she is French, and he ought to know, for he belonged to her," observed the captain, pointing to Lieutenant Vinoy. Pat Monaghan, however, was not convinced; though, as the stranger was rapidly running out of the harbour again, he had no opportunity of ascertaining for himself. Under Pat's pilotage the _Ouzel Galley_ stood on up the harbour, which now narrowed considerably. At length she rounded Cheek Point, when with a fair wind she ran up the Suir, on the south bank of which Waterford is situated. It was late in the evening when at last she dropped her anchor off George's Quay. Before her canvas was furled, Mr Ferris, the senior partner of her owners, Ferris, Twigg, and Cash, came on board, and warmly congratulated the captain on his safe return. On hearing of the gallant way in which possession of the _Ouzel Galley_ had been regained, Mr Ferris invited Norah and Gerald to his house. "My daughter Ellen will be delighted to see her old schoolfellow, Miss Tracy, who was a great favourite of hers," he said; "and many of my friends will be glad to see your son, who from your account was the principal actor in your adventure." "I must not praise Gerald too much," said Captain Tracy, after he had accepted the invitation; "my mate, Owen Massey, was the chief concoctor of the plot, and had I not a high opinion of his judgment and courage, I should not have ventured to give my consent to it."