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.
I had arrived at Cape Town on December 13, and on the 26th of the same month the colonial brig 'Albatross' lay in Table Bay, waiting for me to go aboard in order to sail. This was surely what the shipowners would call 'prompt despatch'!
On the morning of the 26th I said good-bye to my friends in the boarding-house and drove to one of the jetties where Captain Cliffe awaited me. I was accompanied by the colonel and Mr. Pollak. A considerable crowd had assembled to see me embark; the story had leaked out; it was in the papers that I had come to the Cape to identify the body brought from sea by the 'Emerald,' and that, being satisfied it was not that of the girl I was in search of, I was going to the New Orkneys in the hope of finding her locked up in a wreck described as corresponding in every material detail with the hull of the 'Lady Emma.'