16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
they found that hitherto they had been in the
relatively sheltered lee of the topmost ridge
and that the pass itself received not only the
full force of the blast but of that blast concentrated
and magnified by the two converging
sides of rock. The space between was a racing
downward torrent of air and snow that now
partook more and more of the cutting icy crust
from the snowfields far to windward. It was
quite impassable. The sun had vanished in a
white blur at some forgotten or unnoticed
point but by the grace of God a four-day
moon gleaming at odd moments through
breaks in the clouds of flying snow enabled
Eduardo to reach a cleft in the rock-face. It
just allowed them to shelter from the direct
buffeting of the wind if not from its shattering
noise, and to some degree from the rapidly
increasing and mortal cold.
It was a triangular cleft, the outer part filled