16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
dismounted and walked beside the mule; and
steadily the landscape grew more mineral.
'I wish I had paid more attention to geology,'
said Stephen, for on his right hand on the far
side of the gorge the bare mountainside
showed a great band of red, brilliant in the
declining sun against the grey rock below and
the black above. 'Would that be porphyry, at
all?'
On and on: up and always up. The air was
thinner by now, and Joselito was breathing
deep. Before they crossed the head of this valley
they passed a man in a cloak whose horse
had apparently both lost a shoe and picked
up a stone: there was no telling, since he led
his animal limping off the road and stood behind
it, well out of hail. Of infinitely greater
consequence was the prospect of yet another
blessed downward stretch on the far side of
the pass; yet here Stephen, if not the mule,