16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
ONE
A purple ocean, vast under the sky and devoid
of all visible life apart from two minute
ships racing across its immensity. They were as
close-hauled to the somewhat irregular northeast
trades as ever they could be, with every
sail they could safely carry and even more,
their bowlines twanging taut: they had been
running like this day after day, sometimes so
far apart that each saw only the other's topsails
above the horizon, sometimes within
gunshot; and when this was the case they fired
at one another with their chasers.
The foremost ship was the Franklin, an
American privateer of twenty-two guns, ninepounders,
and her pursuer was the Surprise, a