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." "Of which French officer do you speak?" asked Mr Ferris; "we left our late prisoner on board the _Coquille_."