16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
knots and a trifle better than one fathom, sir, if
you please,' he reported, bareheaded, to the
Captain.
'Thank you, Mr Reade,' said Jack, and to
Stephen, 'There, Doctor: ain't you amazed?
Two knots and a little more than a fathom!'
'Profoundly amazed; yet I seem to remember
having gone even faster.'
'Why God love you, of course you have,'
cried Jack. 'It is not the absolute speed that I
am talking about but the relative speed, the
speed in this miserable zephyr of yours. Good
Lord, if we can both make better than two
knots in an air that would scarcely bend a
candle-flame, there is precious little can escape
us, without it has wings or carries seventy-four
guns.'
'Hear him, hear him,' said somebody in the
waist of the ship, and both helmsmen and