16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
or so off-shore, fishing in their primitive way.
Slab-sided objects, and some of them mere
dug-out canoes. There was not a seaman
among them, and at no time did he pay any
attention to their more or less facetious cries
of 'Spik English, yis, yis,' 'Marrano,' 'Herético
pálido.'
One particularly obstinate bugger, a good
way off, in a disgraceful battered old thing
almost the size of a man-of-war's longboat but
only pulling three lackadaisical oars, kept
barking like a comic sea-lion, on and on, anything
for a laugh. Pullings frowned and rowed
a little faster, his head turned from the distant
boat, a craft of no known form, with bits and
pieces dangling over the gunwale. He was after
all a commander, R.N., by courtesy called
Captain; and he was not to be barked at by a
parcel of seals.
As his pace increased so the sea-lions began