But it was not wonderful she should have escaped my observation; in going and coming from the whaler I had thought of nothing but what I was to hear and what I had heard; and earlier my sight, often as it wandered to the shipping, never paused to distinguish.
I saw no more of my Dutch friend till next morning, when, at eleven o'clock, whilst I was making ready to drive into the town and inquire about the brig 'Albatross,' a servant knocked on the door, and said Mr. Pollak was below with another and wished to see me. I at once descended.
His companion was a little man, almost a dwarf; his nose was as long as Punch's, his mouth much like that puppet's, wide and thin, with the look of a smirk in the curl of the lips at either extremity; he wore little slips of grey whiskers; his eyes were deep sunk, grey and kindly, and he blinked them with a nervous fury when he dodged a sort of sea-bow on Mr. Pollak introducing him. He was almost bald, and was perhaps fifty-five years of age, much curved in the back, his shanks slightly arching out. Mr. Pollak called him Captain Christopher Cliffe, and introduced him as master and part-owner of the brig 'Albatross.'
'I know,' said the worthy Dutchman, 'that time is precious to you. I am glad we have found you in. I cannot stay. But I will leave Captain Cliffe behind me to talk with you.'
And picking up his hat he nodded and went out.
I asked the little man if Mr. Pollak had told him my story.
'Enough,' he answered, 'to make me understand there is reason to hurry.'
'The whaler "Sea Queen,"' said I, 'lying just ahead of you——'
'She sailed this morning,' he interrupted.
'She sighted a hull high and dry on the ice of Coronation Island, New Orkneys,' said I, pulling out my note-book to give him the date. 'That hull, when she was made a raft of by the loss of her masts, was abandoned by the crew in latitude 58° 45´ south, longitude 45° 10´ west. Three people were left in her—one of them a young lady, dearer to me than my heart's blood. The "Lady Emma" is as surely the hull that was seen by the Yankee as that you who hear me are alive.'