James has chartered a tea-clipper, the Osiris, in an attempt to get the first of the new tea crop home before anyone else, and so reap, as ever, a healthy profit. Albert has a new lady in his life, a dancehall singer called Carrie, who sees him as a way to better herself, get some money and start a new life. He is marked in this tryst by the ever-watchful Fogarty, mindful of a chance to blacken Fraser's name and use it against Elizabeth if he should need to, or indeed, the Onedin Line. Or perhaps as leverage when he needs to encourage Fraser to build the Golden Nugget to the shareholders' specifications. At sea, the Osiris comes across a floating lifeboat, the men within it showing little of life, but one still alive. He is an old man, who babbles in his stupor. He is in fact quoting scripture, from Revelations, and the men see it as a bad omen, a warning of dire events to come. When he regains consciousness, the old man gives his name as John Hennessy, mate on a coalship that he (thetvdb.com)