16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
and a thirty-eight-gun frigate that nearly destroyed
us. Oh, Hen, such wicked ice south of
Diego Ramírez: and north, for that matter. We
escaped, true enough; but even so I cannot
call the enterprise anything but a failure. And I
am very much afraid that Stephen was betrayed,
that his plan did not come to good,
and that it went right to his heart.'
'I will fetch some brandy,' said Heneage.
They drank it staring at the embers in the
hanging stove; and when they had settled
what masts and spars the Berenice could give
the Surprise, with a long aside about Dundas's
tender the Baltimore clipper, picked up perfect
but empty – not a soul, not a scrap of paper –
in the south Pacific, and her extraordinary sailing
qualities, Jack said, 'No. Harking back to
this voyage, I think it was a failure upon the
whole, and a costly failure; but,' he said
laughing with joy at the thought, 'I am so