16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
kindly murmur said to Reade, 'That's what we
call a corpus, sir: a carcass with his head
emptied of spermaceti and the blubber all
stripped off.'
Jack took the Franklin's bearing, said, 'Mr
Reade, acknowledge and make the signal
Course SSE by E: close-reefed topsails .'
This same course took the Surprise past the
dead whale soon after the moon had risen:
white birds whirled and flashed through the
beams of the stern lantern. They could
scarcely be identified – some pied petrels and
possibly a few of the small albatrosses, apart
from gulls – but on the other hand the huge
carcass, rolling in the phosphorescent sea,
was perfectly clear. 'I reckon he would have
been an old eighty-barrel bull,' observed
Grainger, standing at the rail by Stephen's
side. 'They are not as troublesome as the
young ones, not being so nimble, but they