Read "Heart of Oak, Volume Iii" by W. Clark Russell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was three or four days after this conversation with Captain Robson, a soft, blue glowing afternoon, the sparkling heaves of water lifting south along the course of the steamer, with a pearly feathering of the salt foam going straight as the metals of a railway astern where, in the distant blue air, hung the slowly dissolving shadow of the island of Madeira quitted by us that morning.
Many had gone ashore; we were now a thin company aft, the poop and saloon almost yacht-like with room and comparative privacy.