The Missing Ship Part 16

"I should never forgive myself for having allowed you and Norah to come on board," said Owen, feeling much more anxious than he would have done had he been alone.

"Don't trouble yourself about that, lad," answered the captain; "she is more likely to be a British ship than a Frenchman, and she hasn't got up to us yet, nor will she, I trust, before we are safe in the Liffey. I shall be glad, however, when we get the breeze."

They had not long to wait before cat's-paws were seen playing over the surface of the ocean. The sails were trimmed, and the ship began to glide through the water; faster and faster she moved, but the stranger astern still gained on her. Norah soon followed her father on deck, and the rising sun shining on the white canvas of the ship astern revealed her more clearly to view.

"Is that ship chasing us?" she asked, with a little trepidation in her voice.

"She is following in our wake, but she may be a friend for all that,"

answered Owen, anxious not to alarm Norah. "Should she prove to be a foe, we'll do our best to keep ahead of her. Fortunately, we have a port to run for, and have every chance of gaining it before she comes up with us. See, we have the Wicklow mountains already in sight, and it will not take us many hours to reach Dublin if the wind holds as it 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 appet.i.te," 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-gla.s.s 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 lieutenant and midshipman in her. As they sprang on deck, the latter came running aft.

"Don't you know me, father?" he exclaimed, as he got up to Captain Tracy.

"What, Gerald, my boy! You've grown so tall and brown that, thinking you away in the West Indies, I didn't till this moment," answered Captain Tracy.

"But I thought it was he," cried Norah, as Gerald bestowed on her a brotherly embrace. He then shook hands with Owen, to whom Lieutenant Foley, who was the other officer, had at first addressed himself; but, seeing Norah, he advanced and paid his respects, inquiring for her friend Miss Ferris.

"She is well, and about to sail for Jamaica on board this vessel,"

answered Norah. "You will, if you land at Dublin, have an opportunity of seeing her."

"I hope, then, that the _Ouzel Galley_ will form one of the next fleet which we have received orders to convoy to the West Indies," said Lieutenant Foley. "Having been sent home with despatches, we landed at Plymouth, and were on our way round here when we ran out of our course in chase of a strange sail. She, however, escaped us, and we are now bound into Dublin Bay. Are you going to remain on board?" he asked.

"I am afraid not," said Norah; "but I am sure that it will be satisfactory to Mr Ferris to learn that your ship will convoy them.

Should I see them before you do, I will tell them so."

Thereon the lieutenant sent several messages to Ellen, which Norah promised to deliver, as duty might possibly delay him from going on sh.o.r.e. He then turned to Owen.

"I was sent to press some of the hands out of your ship," he said, "but if you are about again to sail, I feel authorised to take only those who have not agreed to return with you; and I must beg you to muster your crew."

Whatever might have been the intentions of the men, they one and all agreed to re-enter for the next voyage on board the _Ouzel Galley_, and Owen thus secured an experienced crew instead of the untried hands he might afterwards have picked up.

"It is fortunate that you fell in with us instead of any other man-of-war, or you would have lost your best hands," said Gerald; "and we, I suspect, shall have to send pressgangs on sh.o.r.e to pick up all the fellows we can find. You had better give a hint to your men not to trust themselves out of the ship, for all would be fish who come to our net, they may depend on that."

Gerald had to return with Lieutenant Foley to the _Champion_, while the _Ouzel Galley_, having taken a pilot on board, at once ran up the harbour, when Norah and her father proceeded to Mr Ferris's. The arrival of the _Ouzel Galley_ was hailed with great satisfaction by Mr Ferris; still more so was the news Norah gave Ellen, that the _Champion_ was one of the ships of war appointed to convoy the _Ouzel Galley_ and the other merchant vessels to the West Indies. All diligence was used in discharging her cargo and taking a fresh one on board; and in shorter time than usual, thanks to the a.s.sistance rendered by her old captain, she was ready for sea. Owen had the happiness of spending the evenings with Norah, and Ellen was the better able to dispense with her society as Lieutenant Foley managed frequently to get on sh.o.r.e, bringing Gerald with him. Their time, however, was not always pa.s.sed so agreeably, as they had on several occasions to take charge of the pressgangs sent on sh.o.r.e to pick up men, and more than once they were engaged in pretty severe encounters with the unwilling seamen whom it was their duty to capture.

Mr Foley and the young midshipman were spending the evening at Mr Ferris's, when they were summoned out.

"We must wish you good night," said the lieutenant to Ellen, returning; "we have some duty to attend to, and shall afterwards have to go on board our ship."

The ladies came into the hall, and were somewhat astonished at the garb which the two officers quickly a.s.sumed. Over their neat uniforms they put on large Flushing trousers, thick coats of the same material b.u.t.toned up to their throats, round which they tied large comforters, while on their heads they wore weather-beaten sou'-westers. A cutla.s.s, buckled on by a leathern belt in which a brace of pistols were stuck, showed that they were about to proceed on an expedition in which rough play might be expected.

"Where are you going?" asked Ellen, in some trepidation.

"Only to obtain a few loyal seamen to serve his Majesty," answered the lieutenant. "The fellows don't know their true interests, and may perhaps offer some opposition; but don't be alarmed--we hope to be on sh.o.r.e to-morrow to give a good account of ourselves."

The lieutenant and midshipman set off under the guidance of the captain's c.o.xswain, a Dublin man, who had come for them. Proceeding to a public-house on one of the lower quays, they found a dozen seamen dressed and armed as they were. The lieutenant having given them directions, they followed him and his guide to that part of Dublin known as the "Liberties," inhabited by the dregs of the population. The night was dark; no lamps illumined that part of the town. The lantern carried by Larry Flynn, the c.o.xswain, enabled the party to thread their way through several narrow streets till they reached a house, at the door of which he stopped.

"This is it, yer honour," said Larry; "but we must be mighty quick, or they'll be after escaping along the tiles."

On this he gave a gentle knock at the door. "Hist! Mother O'Flanigan, open the door, or I'll be taken hold of by the watchmen," he whispered through the keyhole, as he heard a step within.

"Who is it?" asked the voice.

"Shure, it's Dennis Donovan, whom ye'll be after knowing, I'm thinking; but quick, quick, mother dear, or it'll be too late and I'll be caught."

As he spoke the bars were withdrawn, and the lock turned, and the old woman, forgetting her usual caution, slowly opened the door. On this Larry sprang in, and before she had time to shriek out thrust a woollen comforter into her mouth.

"Hold her fast, Bill!" he exclaimed to one of the men who had been directed to guard the door, while the lieutenant and Gerald, with the rest, rushed along a narrow pa.s.sage, at the end of which another female, a stout, st.u.r.dy-looking Amazon, appeared with a light in one hand and a poker in the other.

"Who are ye, ye brutes?" she exclaimed, "coming to disturb a dacent household at this time of night? Shure, the childher are in bed, and ye'll be waking them up and sending them into fits, the darlints."

"It's joking ye are, Misthress Milligan, for divil a child have ye got in the house, barring a score of bhoys with big whiskers on their faces," answered Larry; "so just keep a dacent tongue in your mouth, and be quiet with that poker."

Mrs Milligan, finding that she was known, and as it would be useless to deny that she had guests in the house, shrieked out at the top of her voice, "Run, bhoys, run--the pressgang are on ye!" at the same time attempting, with her formidable weapon, to prevent the seamen from opening the door before which she stood. Larry, however, dashing forward, wrenched it from her hand, and giving her a shove which sent her reeling into the arms of those behind him, burst open the door with his cudgel; and, the harridan having been handed along to those in the rear, the rest of the men followed him into the room. It was an apartment of some size. At one end was a table covered with mugs, a jug or two, and several bottles of large proportions, and surrounded by benches; while at the other end were four beds, each with a couple of occupants, who had endeavoured to conceal their features by the coverlets. Larry pointed to them, and he and his companions springing forward and drawing off the coverlets, brought to view eight fully clad seamen, who, offering no resistance, quietly submitted to their fate; though sundry oaths and throats of vengeance showed that they believed themselves to be the victims of treachery.

"There are more of them stowed away above," exclaimed Larry; and, leaving the room, he sprang up a rickety stair.

"Who comes there?" cried a gruff voice from the top. The speaker had probably been aroused by the noises below. "You'll pay dear for it, whoever you are who attempt to interfere with me."

"Shure, d.i.c.k Rowan, your time has come at last to serve his Majesty, threaten and bl.u.s.ter as you like," cried Larry, as he and the rest continued their ascent.

"Take that!" cried the previous speaker, firing a pistol, the bullet whistling near Larry's ear, but striking in the wall behind him. Before he could draw another, Larry and the lieutenant threw themselves upon him, and in spite of his struggles dragged him downstairs. His shouts aroused several other men, who rushed out armed with bludgeons and pistols.

"Come up here at your peril," cried one of them, who appeared at the head of the stair, flourishing his bludgeon and holding a pistol in his left hand.

"It's not such orders from the like of you we've a mind to obey," said Larry, who having handed over the men just taken prisoners, was, with the lieutenant and Gerald, about to ascend the steps. Gerald was struck by the voice, and as Larry threw the light of his lantern before him, he recognised, as he believed, the features of Carnegan, the second mate of the _Ouzel Galley_--or rather O'Harrall, as he has been better known to the reader.

"Seize the ruffian," cried Gerald; "he is an escaped prisoner. I know him!" He sprang up the steps as he spoke, Mr Foley, Larry, and several of the men following.

"Take that for your knowledge, youngster," cried the man, firing his pistol; and finding that it had missed Gerald's head, though by a hair's breadth alone, he lifted his cudgel and would have effectually put an end to his young a.s.sailant, had not Larry interposed his cutla.s.s, and, before the man could again raise his weapon, inflicted so severe a wound that he was compelled to drop it. The lieutenant and more seamen coming up threw themselves on him, and in spite of several other people who had come out, he also was secured. The rest retreated into the room, but were pursued before they could make their escape from the windows, which they were attempting to do. One fellow was hauled back just as he had got outside, and in a short time every male inmate of the house was captured.