16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
came from a great way off – it was a natural
law among them – but here, in this ancestral
heap (so useful as fuel) nothing whatsoever
had been deposited for months: the whole
surface and the periphery were old, worn, and
perfectly dry.
This subversion of all that was right, and the
shame of promising birds and beasts that did
not appear, made Eduardo as nearly morose
as his cheerful, sanguine nature would allow,
and for part of the afternoon they rode in silence.
During this long stretch, when the faint
track rose steadily through broken rocky country
towards a far high rounded crest, the train
moved on with barely a sound. The Indians,
whose high-arched noses and large dark eyes
made them look quite like their llamas, talked
little, and that in low voices: during all this
time Stephen had not been able to establish
human relations with a single one of them,