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Turned Adrift, by Harry Collingwood
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Title: Turned Adrift
Author: Harry Collingwood
Illustrator: Edward S. Hodgson
Release Date: March 17, 2008 [EBook #24859]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURNED ADRIFT ***
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
Turned Adrift, by Harry Collingwood.
CHAPTER ONE.
THE SEIZURE OF THE "ZENOBIA".
The Zenobia--A1 at Lloyd's--was a beautiful little clipper barque of 376 tons register, and so exquisitely fine were her lines that her cargo-carrying capacity amounted to but a few tons more than her register tonnage; in fact, the naval architect who designed her had been instructed to ignore altogether the question of cargo capacity, and to give his whole attention to the matter of speed, and most faithfully had he carried out his instructions.
For the Zenobia had been designed and built to the order of the firm which owned the famous "Queen" line of sailing clippers trading between London and Natal; and the aim of the Company was to drive off all competitors and secure the monopoly of the passenger trade between London and the Garden Colony. And there was only one way in which that aim could be accomplished, namel