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More "Masthead" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flour, or tea, or sugar. The last time they sailed together the barometer was low, and a gale was brewing. When they left the wharf they had taken on board all the stores they required, and more; they were happy and glorious. Next day the masthead of their boat was seen sticking out of the water near Sunday Island. The pilot schooner went down and hauled the boat to the surface, but nothing was found in her except the sand-ballast and a bottle of rum. Her sheet was made fast, and when the squall struck ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... before I had seen his wife at a reception with a rope of pearls in her riggin' an' a search-light o' diamonds on her forward deck an' a tiara-boom-de-ay at her masthead an' the flags of opulence ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... in a spirit friendly with old memories, forgetful of their long quarrel in the stirred emotions of the past days of youth and first manhood; and he had shouted at Barzil as if he were a lubber at the masthead. ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... two. Her sails were hoisted at once, and she rowed out from the port. Having proceeded some three or four miles, they lowered her sails, and lay to in the course a galley making for the port would take. A sailor was sent up to the masthead to keep a lookout. Late in the afternoon he called down that he could make out a black speck some twelve miles away. She carried no sails, and he judged her to ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine! Sail ho! cried a triumphant voice from the main-masthead. Aye? Well, now, that's cheering, cried Ahab, suddenly erecting himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better man. —Where away? Three points on the starboard ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... wonder. She was staring at him with all the might of her soul awakening slowly from a poisoned sleep, in which it could only quiver with pain but could neither expand nor move. He plunged into them breathless and tense, deep, deep, like a mad sailor taking a desperate dive from the masthead into the blue unfathomable sea so many men have execrated and loved at the same time. And his vanity was immense. It had been touched to the quick by that muscular little feminist, Fyne. "I! I! Take advantage of her helplessness. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... the steel of her quality. She would be his prisoner because she must, but the "no compromise" flag was nailed to her masthead. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... man complied with this request, and waddling aft took the tiller, his more active companion sprang into the main rigging and ran rapidly to the masthead, from which point of vantage he gazed back for a full minute over the course they ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... May they passed the great Nantuna, and got among the Bornese and Malay Islands: at which the captain's glass began to sweep the horizon again: and night and day at the dizzy foretop-gallant-masthead ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... Island Light the reefs were shaken out, and at Charley's suggestion a big fisherman's staysail was made all ready for hoisting, and the main-topsail, bunched into a cap at the masthead, was overhauled so that it could be ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... shifts of wind in the night. The currents hereabouts are exceedingly strong, and the soundings taken early in the morning proved that we were in unpleasantly shallow water—in fact, almost touching what we made out to be the edge of the Spermonde (?) Archipelago. Tom was at the masthead, endeavouring to pick up some landmark. At last he was able to distinguish the highest peak marked on the chart to the south of Macassar; whereupon he fearlessly gave the order to go full speed ahead in a NN.E. direction between that island and Satanga. ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... of the stories I had read of raising the drawbridge across the moat of some ancient feudal castle, and leaving the mole with its imitation portcullis behind we steamed out into the bay. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, and there was not enough wind to straighten out the pennant from the masthead. ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... mainsail, and the distant rattle from the hungry jib—signs that they are starved of wind and must be given more; the heavy list and wallow of the hull, the feel of the wind on your cheek instead of your nose, the broader angle of the burgee at the masthead—signs that they have too much, and that she is sagging recreantly to leeward instead of fighting to windward. He taught me the tactics for meeting squalls, and the way to press your advantage when they are defeated—the iron hand in the velvet glove ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... braved the battle and the breeze," blew out strong from the peak, like a sheet of flickering white flame, or a thing instinct with life, struggling to tear away the ensign haulyards, and to escape high into the clouds; while, from the main—royal—masthead, the long white pennant streamed upwards into the azure heavens, like a ray of silver light. Oh! it was a sight "most beautiful to see," as the old song hath it,———but I confess I would have preferred that pleasure from t'other ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... piratical hordes of critics who prowl hungrily along the track over which it must sail? Would it become a melancholy wreck on the mighty ocean of literature, or would it proudly ride at anchor in the harbor of immortality, with her name floating for ever at the masthead? ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... and the apex was the lower corner of the triangular sail, which could be hauled over to either side of the ship, one end of the yard being hauled down on the other side. The sail thus lay at an angle with the line of the keel, with one point of the yard high above the masthead, and by carrying the sheet tackle of the point of the sail across the ship, and reversing the position of the yard, the galley was put on one tack or the other. Forward, pointing ahead, was a battery of two or more guns, ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... small circular house like a cask, fixed at the masthead, in which the look-out man sits, either to guide the ship through the ice or to give notice ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... on such an island and you begin at once to understand the legends of enchantment which ages have collected around such spots. Climb to its heights, you seem at the masthead of some lonely vessel, kept forever at sea. You feel as if no one but yourself had ever landed there; and yet, perhaps, even there, looking straight downward, you see below you in some crevice of the rock a mast or spar of some wrecked vessel, encrusted with all ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... answer. 'Then fire, and shift the colors,' were the orders. The cannons poured forth their deadly contents, and, with the first flash, the American flag took the place of the British ensign at our masthead. ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... have information," said Marah grimly, "otherwise they'd not be looking for us here. Some one had been talking to his wife." He hailed the masthead again. "Have the frigates seen ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... The corvette was leaving slowly and as if with regret the scene of the catastrophe, when the sailor at the masthead, who was on the look-out, ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... night the scene of bustle and preparation went on, and when darkness fell the whole host had embarked. Every ship was ordered to bear a light, and a huge lantern was hoisted at the masthead of the Mora, the duke's own ship, and orders were issued that all vessels should follow the light. The Mora, however, was a quick sailer, and was not, like the other vessels, deeply laden down with horses and men. When daylight broke, therefore, she had so ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... special service, spoke of commissariat and transport, of standing patrols and Cossack posts, of bivouacks, entrenchments, vedettes, contact squadrons, tactical sub-units, demolitions and entanglements. In those dark hours, while alien stars were rising and swinging westward over the masthead, hard, fit, clear-headed young men talked coolly and with common sense of the big business before them. The evening consultations were all that we gave to the future. The past was even less openly recognised; but it proclaimed itself eloquently in the withered bunches of flowers on this ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... of November, being then just about 40 minutes south of the equator, and in Long. 119 degrees W., at eight o'clock in the morning the lookout at the masthead ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... at the flag-ship's masthead, and the decks were thronged with the brilliant uniforms of the regiment of Carignan-Salieres, whom the King had sent to destroy the enemies of New France. In the midst stood the stately Marquis, gorgeous in vice-regal robes ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... "Get your masthead light out. Then display your starboard and port sidelights. Men," called Hal to his soldiers, "I call upon you to note and remember that this craft had no lights out until I ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... a different thing from furling a royal in a light breeze. When I had got to the topgallant masthead, the yard was well down by the lifts and steadied by the braces, but the clews were not hauled chock up to the blocks. Leaning out precariously, I won Mr. Thomas's attention with greatest difficulty, and shrieked to have it done. ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... crown which encircles the brow of royalty, is not "a sham," but a symbol which speaks more than words to every British heart; the standard that waves at the head of the regiment, nor the flag that floats at the ship's masthead is not "a sham," but a symbol that nerves the soldier and the sailor to duty and to victory. So the Bible is not "a sham," but a symbol of right and liberty dear to the heart of every Protestant ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... towed into port that, counting their chickens before they were hatched, they prepared a public supper to greet the victors on their return to the harbour, with their prisoners. It was otherwise. Captain Broke saw with delight, from the masthead of the Shannon, that his challenge was to be satisfactorily replied to. The Shannon was cleared for action, and waited for the Chesapeake. She had not long to wait. The Chesapeake came bowling along with three ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... of September, a sailor at the masthead of the Lawrence sighted the British squadron steering across the lake with a fair wind and ready to give battle. Perry instantly sent his crews to quarters and trimmed sail to quit the bay and form his line in open water. He was eager to take ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... war with Spain this occurrence frequently took place? In the Caribbean waters a Spanish merchantman would be overtaken by an American warship. A few shots were sent over the bows of the merchantman with a demand for surrender. And then the Spanish flag was seen to drop from the merchantman's masthead in token ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... morning, on the 7th of May, a man at the masthead of the Tigre sang out that he saw ships in the offing; and in reply to the signal that was hastily run up, he saw the distant vessels hoist friendly flags. That May morning was a busy time. The besieged Turks took heart of grace; the French outside, under the command ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... diminutive bridesmaid's hats, and at the wedding of a bride who is going to travel far away there may be small boats, either real or of cardboard, with a flying flag of matrimony at the masthead. ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... feel jealous that this thin weak-looking fellow should have proved himself more clever and thoughtful than I was, he sprang into the shrouds, the Malay hardly noticing, evidently believing that the boy was going aloft to be safe. He looked up at him once, as Jack Penny settled himself at the masthead, but turned his attention fiercely towards us as the captain arranged his men as if for a rush, forming ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... Pacific ocean. He may be musing over some past event, the ship may be sailing gently along over the smooth ocean, every thing around solemnly still, with the sun pouring its intense rays with dazzling brightness. Suddenly the monotonous quietude is broken by an animated voice from the masthead, exclaiming, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... them. The boats were hanging over the side ready to lower, tubs for coiling away the ropes, harpoons, lances, &c., all were ready to throw in, and start away at a moment's notice. The man in the "crow's-nest", as they call the cask fixed up at the masthead, was looking anxiously out for whales, and the crew were idling about the deck. Tom Lokins was seated on the windlass smoking his pipe, and I was sitting beside him on an empty cask, ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... lying over until her masthead was but a few feet above water. The seas were striking her with tremendous force, pouring a deluge ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... crew—-"where are the lovely women that danced beneath the awning of flowers and clustering corynibi? Whither have fled the noble young men that danced with them?" Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the masthead, whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried out, "Sail on the weather beam! Down she comes upon us; in seventy seconds she also ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... minutes together the bows of the ship were not visible. Masthead and sidelights were obscured by the pelting scud. The engines thrust the vessel forward like a lance into the vitals of the storm. Wind and wave gushed out of the vortex ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... out in common daily life the knife of sacrifice is held across the path constantly, sharp edge out, barring the way? And no one can go faithfully his common round, with flag at masthead, and needs crowding in at front and rear and sides, without meeting its cutting edge. That edge cutting in as you push on frees out the fine fragrance. Whenever you meet a man or woman with that fine winsomeness of spirit that can't be analyzed, but only felt, ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... of Queen Victoria as Empress of India (July 1, 1877), an event which was signalised by a splendid Durbar at Delhi on January 1, 1878. The new title warned the world that, however far Russia advanced in Central Asia, England nailed the flag of India to her masthead. It was also a useful reminder to the small but not uninfluential Positivist school in England that their "disapproval" of the existence of a British Empire in India was wholly Platonic. Seeing also that the name "Queen" in Hindu (Malika) ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Spanish war-horse and dressed in a red silk tunic embroidered with gold. Red seems to have been a favourite English war colour from very early times. The red St. George's Cross on a white field was flown from the masthead by the commander-in-chief of the fleet, just as it is today. On another flag always used aboard ship three ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... "Surely, sire, you do not mean to forget the duke's faithful ally, M. de Praslin? It would ill become us to detain him when the head of the family has taken leave of us." "You are right," replied the king, smiling; "besides, an old broom taken from a masthead would be as useful to us as he would." Then, turning to M. de la Vrilliere, the king dictated the following laconic notice:— "COUSIN,—I have no further occasion for your services; I exile you to Praslin, and expect you will repair thither within four and twenty ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... fire a gun, for a pilot; and almost before its smoke had cleared away, a little boat with a light at her masthead came bearing down upon us, through the darkness, swiftly. And presently, our sails being backed, she ran alongside; and the hoarse pilot, wrapped and muffled in pea-coats and shawls to the very bridge of his weather-ploughed-up ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... and latent strength the two men resembled each other closely. The book is, in fact, a history of Lord Raglan's share in the campaign; begun in 1856 at the request of Lady Raglan, the narrative ends when the "Caradoc" with the general's body on board steams out of the bay, "Farewell" flying at her masthead, the Russian batteries, with generous recognition, ceasing to fire till the ship was out of sight. "Lord Raglan is dead," said Kinglake as vol. viii. was sent to press, "and my ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... monster silver-stripe heaved up on our lee. 'Twas a finback whale, M. Radisson explained; and he protested against the impudence of scratching its back on our keel. As we sailed farther north many a school of rolling finbacks glistened silver in the sun or rose higher than our masthead, when one took the death-leap to escape its leagued foes—swordfish and thrasher and shark. And to give you an idea of the fearful tide breaking through the narrow fiords of that rock-bound coast, I may ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... large place among the year's designs for toweling. The towel designs celebrating naval victories have been particularly successful: they are mostly in white, on a blue ground; or in black, on a white ground. One of the best—blue and white—represented only a flock of gulls wheeling about the masthead of a sunken iron-clad, and, far away, the silhouettes of Japanese battleships passing to the horizon.... What especially struck me in this, and in several other designs, was the original manner in which the Japanese artist had seized upon the traits of the modern battleship,—the ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... the admiral showed a flicker of emotion. He took the silken emblem, and passed his hand reverently over its surface. "I am the admiral," he said to the collector's lady. Being on land he could bring himself to no more exuberant expression of sentiment. At sea with the flag at the masthead of his navy, some more eloquent exposition ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... Britain. According to the British statement of the case, in October, 1856, the Chinese authorities at Canton seized the lorcha although it was registered as a British vessel, tore down the British flag from its masthead, and carried away the crew as prisoners. On the other hand the Chinese claimed that they had arrested the crew, who were subjects of the emperor, as pirates, that the British ownership had lapsed some time previously, and that there was no flag flying on the ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... Periodicals or Other Serials Any location acceptable for books As part of, or adjacent to, the masthead or on the page containing the masthead Adjacent to a prominent heading, appearing at or near the front of the issue, containing the title of the periodical and any combination of the volume and issue number ...
— Supplementary Copyright Statutes • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... have the honour to inform you that on the 19th instant, at 2 P.M., being in latitude 41 deg. 42', longitude 55 deg. 48', with the Constitution under my command, a sail was discovered from the masthead bearing E. by S. or E. S. E., but at such a distance we could not tell what she was. All sail was instantly made in chase, and we soon found we came up with her. At 3 P.M. could plainly see that she was a ship on the starboard tack, under easy sail, close on a wind; at half ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... went up to the masthead, and when he came down he said to his fellows: "A sight exceeding wondrous have I seen, for a great whale went in a ring about the ship, and I misdoubt me that we come nigh to some land, and that he is keeping the shore against us; for certes King Helgi has dealt with us in no friendly ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... more than thirty sea fights. He beat the Spanish fleet and an English one, and then fastened a broom to his masthead to show that he had swept the English from the sea. Takes the Dutch ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... appointed to the command of the Boreas, a ship of twenty-eight guns, then bound for the Leeward Islands, he had thirty midshipmen under him. When any of them, at first, showed any timidity about going up the masts, he would say, by way of encouragement, "I am going a race to the masthead, and beg that I may meet you there." And again he would say cheerfully, that "any person was to be pitied who could fancy there was any danger, or even anything ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... they are good. Mr. Lindsay gave them to me. But what have I to do with jewels, the very emblem of the folly of the world, the desire that itches in palms that know no good works, the price of sin!" She leaned against the masthead as she spoke, the wind blew her hair and her skirt out toward the following seas. With that look in her eyes she seemed a creature who had alighted on the ship but who could ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... to wait a pilot, being strangers to the waters," surmised Clowes, wheeling and looking up the river townwards. "Ay, there goes some signal from the 'Charon's' truck," he went on, as the British frigate anchored off the town displayed three flags at her masthead. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... later the duel began in deadly earnest. The tricolor ran up to the masthead of the French cruiser, and jets of mingled smoke and flame spurted one after the other from her sides, and shells began bursting in quick succession round the rapidly-advancing Englishman. Evidently the Frenchman, with his remaining torpedo-boat, thought himself a good match for the British ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... the white light on the masthead appeared and disappeared the red and green, obscured intermittently by the tossing waves. Soon they could be seen all the time. Percy ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... the maritime supremacy of England. Since then her commerce, protected and advertised by the most powerful navy in the world, has mounted by leaps and bounds, so that now half the vessels which sail the seas bear at their masthead the Union Jack. From her dominions beyond the oceans and from her ships upon the seas Great Britain drew power and prestige; British merchants acquired opulence with resulting social and political importance ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... then sent to him to cruise north of the Orkneys to protect the fisheries. There were no fisheries to protect, and the order was simply a sentence of exile. He remained here for nearly fifteen months, and during the whole of that time not so much as a single ship was ever seen from the masthead. He returned to England on the 1st of December, 1804, and found that Lord St. Vincent had just been compelled to retire from the admiralty. Cochrane's claims were urged by his friends on Lord Melville, his successor, and with such force ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... for a brief sweet time, that Love and Beauty made their strange home, as though a pair of halcyons should choose to nest in the masthead of a cattleship. Love and Beauty chose this quarter, as, alas! Love and Beauty must choose so many things—for its cheapness. Love and Beauty were poor, and office rents in this quarter were exceptionally ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... the shore. The muffled beat of the breakers could be heard through the gloom, which was riven every second by the great, swinging search-light in the Navesink. Not a mile ahead was the bar; and the masthead light of the Kentigern could be seen, twinkling ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... the anchors were hoisted and the sails were set, and the little fleet, wafted by pleasant winds, sailed out of the bay, and eastward across the calm blue sea. And Siegfried's vessel, with a golden dragon banner floating from the masthead, led all the rest. ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... weather of the day before. The night set in pitch dark. The wind came off the sea in squalls, like the firing of a battery of cannon; now and then there was a flaw of rain, and the surf rolled heavier with the rising tide. I was down at my observatory among the elders, when a light was run up to the masthead of the schooner, and showed she was closer in than when I had last seen her by the dying daylight. I concluded that this must be a signal to Northmour's associates on shore; and, stepping forth into the links, looked around me ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the great cabin to report. He was barely out of sight before a second cry came from the masthead: ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the birds may do above or the fishes beneath his ship, man is the only thing to steer; the only thing to be conceived as steering. He may make the birds his friends, if he can. He may make the fishes his gods, if he chooses. But most certainly he will not believe a bird at the masthead; and it is hardly likely that he will even permit a fish at the helm. He is, as Swinburne says, helmsman and chief: he is literally the ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... when Cass held the State portfolio, and, strange to say, the author of "Cass's Protest" went farther than any of his predecessors in acknowledging the justice of England's demands. Said he, in 1859: "If The United States maintained that, by carrying their flag at her masthead, any vessel became thereby entitled to the immunity which belongs to American vessels, they might well be reproached with assuming a position which would go far towards shielding crimes upon the ocean from punishment; but they advance no such pretension, while they concede that, if ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... do, and cry, in his merry voice, 'Annemie, Annemie, here is more flax to spin, here is more hose to weave!' For that was always his homeward word; no matter whether he had had fair weather or foul, he always knotted the flax to his masthead. So you see, dear, I could not leave here. For what if he came and found me away? He would say it was an odd fashion of mourning for him. And I could not do without the window, you know. I can watch ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... in perfect order, but on arrival at Corfu were ordered into quarantine, because six months before cholera had made a brief appearance at Ancona. Our consul, Mr. Woodley, came off to the steamer to see me, for the American flag was flying from the masthead, as is customary in the Levant when a consul is on board, and he proposed to hire a little yacht for us to make the quarantine in, as otherwise we should have to go to a desert island at the head of the bay, where the only shelter was an ancient and dilapidated lazaretto ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... and 31 were foggy days, and neither fleet could see the other. On June 1st there was a blue sky, a brilliant sun, a lively sea, and a wind that favoured the plans of the British Admiral. The signal for close action was flown from the masthead of the Queen Charlotte. Howe ordered his ships to sail on an oblique course down upon the French line, the two fleets having during the night lain in parallel lines stretching east and west. The intention was to break the French line near the centre, each British captain sailing round the stern ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... a ship was heaving on the surge, so trimly sparred, so glossily painted, so elegant and point-device in every feature, that my heart was seized with admiration. The English colours blew from her masthead; and, from my high station, I caught glimpses of her snowy planking, as she rolled on the uneven deep, and saw the sun glitter on the brass of her deck furniture. There, then, was my ship of refuge; and of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yourself adrift? That won't do at all. There, sir, let's wait for day. We may have quite a breeze come with the sun, and soon after catch sight of the Naughtylass bowling down to us. For, trust me, they'll see us fast enough. Young Mr Bob Howlett'll be up at the masthead spying out with his glass, see if he ain't. Better have a ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... with two hundred thousand men. The story has often been told how the Dutch, tenfold outnumbered, desperately and gloriously defended themselves. They finally swept the English from the seas, and patroled the Channel with a broom at the masthead. By the terms of the treaty of peace which Charles was obliged by his own parliament to make, all conquests were mutually restored, and New York consequently reverted to England. West Jersey was bought by the Quakers; ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... eyes to see, the outlines of the rowboat merged into the dimness. It was pointed like a gun toward a large yacht lying at anchor farther out in the stream. The vessel swayed prettily to the current, and slowly swung its dim light from the masthead. ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... our course to the southward. A few days after this we were standing on with a fair breeze and a light wind, when the look-out from the masthead hailed the deck, to say that there was an object on the port bow, but whether a rock, or a ship with her masts gone or capsized, or a whale, he could not tell. Several of the officers went aloft with their glasses, as I also did, to try and ascertain what it was which had hove ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... but one appeared to be lost, her mizzen topgallant mast was gone, several great patches in her sails also attracted attention; there too was a field-piece mounted and lashed on the quarter-deck as a stern-chaser. The fore royal was furled, and two flags were hanging limply from the masthead; the light breeze from time to time fluttering them a little, but not sufficiently to disclose what they were, until just opposite High Street, where she dropped her only remaining anchor, when a sudden gust of wind lifted the ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the north, and Break-sea Island with the south point of the entrance, and the highest hill bore N.E. by N. by compass. The least depth of water we had in passing the entrance was 4 fathoms; but to those who may wish to go in, the plan in Plate II of the Atlas, and a good look-out from the masthead, will be of more service than ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... the man at the masthead announced the advance of the merchant fleet, he allowed himself to be tempted and turned to Captain Salt who ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the frigate we left had gone to his family. The second, in consequence, had become first. He was a thorough seaman, and carried on the duty with a tight hand. Woe betide the unfortunate mid who was remiss in his duties: the masthead or double watches were sure to be his portion. When the former, he hung out to dry two and sometimes four hours. The mids designated him "The Martinet." The second lieutenant was an elderly man, something of the old school, and not very polished, fond of spinning a tough yarn ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... of glass. We had left the pack ice, but before us stretched an island of such extent that the end of it could not be seen. This island rose to the height of twenty feet. It was perfectly flat, with steep, perpendicular sides, which made it inaccessible to man. From the masthead, however, it was possible to observe its surface, which we saw to be covered by a vast number of penguins, so we knew a landing must be available somewhere, for these birds are wingless. This island was composed entirely of ice, it being, as Hartog reckoned, a glacier ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... "Somethin's happened to bother him, that's sartin'. When Cap'n Lote gets his feet propped up and his head tilted back that way I can 'most generally cal'late he's doin' some real thinkin'. Real thinkin'—yes, sir-ee—um-hm—yes—yes. When he h'ists his boots up to the masthead that way it's safe to figger his brains have got steam up. ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... "chains" or strong platforms projecting from the ship's sides. These "chains" were clamped to the ship's sides with rigid links of iron. The shrouds of the after masts were generally set up within the bulwarks. On each mast, just above the lower yard, yet below the masthead, was a fighting-top built of elm wood and gilded over. It was a little platform, resting on battens, and in ancient times it was circular, with a diameter of perhaps six or seven feet. It had a parapet round it, inclining outboard, perhaps four ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... proper." The logic of the situation was undeniably on the side of the master of the shore batteries. Rather than have his ship blown to bits, Bainbridge swallowed his wrath and submitted. On the eve of departure, he had to submit to another indignity. The colors of Algiers must fly at the masthead. Again Bainbridge remonstrated and again the Dey looked casually at his guns trained on the frigate. So off the frigate sailed with the Dey's flag fluttering from her masthead, and ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... Catherine, then proceeded: "And after this they took me to the quay, and presently I espied among the masts one garlanded with amaranth flowers. 'Take me thither,' said I, and I let my guide know the custom of our Dutch skippers to hoist flowers to the masthead when they are courting a maid. Oft had I scoffed at this saying, 'So then his wooing is the earth's concern. But now, so far from the Rotter, that bunch at a masthead made my heart leap with assurance of a countryman. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Yet this might not be (since slaves were hard to come by and I was mighty and strong) wherefore I struggled no more, but suffered them to strike off my broken fetters and bind me to the whipping-post as they listed. Yet scarce had they made an end when there comes a loud hail from the masthead, whereupon was sudden mighty to-do of men running hither and yon, laughing and shouting one to another, some buckling on armour as they ran, some casting loose the great ordnance, while eyes turned and hands pointed ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... indeed the American whaleman in sight when the governor visited the waterside, and was then coming in, but just as the sea-breeze commenced, the look-out at the masthead reported a large school of sperm whales in the offing. Although the want of vegetables and fresh provisions did grieve him sore, yet want of oil did grieve him more; and accordingly, Captain Hazard, whose ship was but ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... exactness of a review. Their politeness ought to be remembered by every man in our line; for, as if certain of what happened, we came down almost end-on upon their broadsides; yet did not the Dutch admiral fire a gun, or make the signal to engage, till the red flag was at the Fortitude's masthead, and her shot finding their way into his ship. This was a manoeuvre which Admiral Zutman should not be warmly thanked for by their High Mightinesses; as he had it in his power to have done infinite ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... oldest church in Delft. It contains the tomb of the famous Admiral Tromp, the veteran of the Dutch navy, who saw thirty-two naval battles, and in 1652, at the battle of the Downs, defeated the English fleet commanded by Blake. He re-entered his country with a broom tied to the masthead of the admiral's ship to indicate that he had swept the English off the seas. Here also is the tomb of Peter Heyn, who from a simple fisherman rose to be a great admiral, and took that memorable netful of Spanish ships ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... two of them part from the others and go in chase of the privateer. Would they catch her? We forgot our fatigue and wounds, so fascinated were we in watching the pursuit, and the other two vessels were within hailing distance of us almost before we were aware. English colors were now flying at our masthead, and a voice through a speaking trumpet called ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... disappearing for a few seconds, then rising, high in the air, as it appeared. The two lights were the side lights of a boat, red on the port and green on the starboard, and above them was a single white light at the masthead. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... "After passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, the second officer, who had charge of the deck, gave the order to 'port,' much to my astonishment, for the lights to be seen about a point on the starboard bow were a masthead and green light, but he maintained that it was a masthead and red, and not until both ships were nearly abreast would he acknowledge his mistake. I may add that during the rest of the voyage I never saw him making the same mistake. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... seventy-four, the Centaur, close alongside the Diamond; made a hawser, with a traveller on it, fast to the ship and to the top of the rock; and in January 1804 got three long 24's and two 18's hauled up far above his masthead by sailors who, as they 'hung like clusters,' appeared 'like mice hauling a little sausage. Scarcely could we hear the Governor on the top directing them with his trumpet; the Centaur lying close under, like a ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... come into the open on Amalgamated, he might never have been known as the real master of "Standard Oil." But if he is missing when the public is hurrahing, he is sufficiently in evidence when clouds lower or when the danger-signal is run to the masthead at 26 Broadway. He who reads "Standard Oil" history will note that, from its first deal until this day, whenever bricks, cabbages, or aged eggs were being presented to "Standard Oil," always were Henry H. Rogers' towering form and defiant eye to be seen in the foreground where the missiles ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... the northerly winds came a third fleet with the gold and red of Spain fluttering from its masthead. This, too, was carrying its King westward, where now, indeed, the star of empire ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... pirate ship appeared. Reader, I do not know if you have ever seen a pirate ship. The sight was one to appal the stoutest heart. The entire ship was painted black, a black flag hung at the masthead, the sails were black, and on the deck people dressed all in black walked up and down arm-in-arm. The words "Pirate Ship" were painted in white letters on the bow. At the sight of it our crew were visibly cowed. It was a spectacle that ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... sets for sail, The sun is her masthead light, She tows the moon like a pinnace frail Where her phospher wake churns bright, Now hid, now looming clear, On the face of the dangerous blue The star fleets tack and wheel and veer, But on, but on does the old earth steer As if her port ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... ship (such as Godwin gave as a gift to the king his master), and the monk of St. Bertin and the court-poets have lovingly described a ship with gold-broidered sails, gilt masts, and red-dyed rigging. One of his ships has, like the ships in the Chansons de Geste, a carbuncle for a lantern at the masthead. Hedin signals to Frode by a shield at the masthead. A red shield was a peace signal, as noted above. The practice of "strand-hewing", a great feature in Wicking-life (which, so far as the victualling of raw meat by ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the curtain which hangs between the real and the mimic world, on board a mediaeval ship, within a few hours' sail of Cornwall, whither Tristan is bearing Isolde to be the wife of his king Marke. The cheery song of a sailor who, unseen, at the masthead, sings to the winds which are blowing him away from his wild Irish sweetheart, floats down to us. It has a refreshing and buoyant lilt, this song, with something of the sea breeze in it, and yet something, as it is sung, which ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... a revolver had caused them to retreat as silently and speedily as they had appeared. That was all. There was no actual fight. The phantoms vanished as silently as they came. The only external lights on the ship were the masthead and sidelights, hoisted by Courtenay to reveal the steamer's whereabouts in case one of the boats chanced to be driven into the bay during the dark hours. There was an electric lamp turned on in the donkey-engine ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... compass could spare his eyes saw them roaming across to where the Orion, like ourselves, was plugging through the short green seas for home. When his watch was done he borrowed my glasses, climbed by painful relays to the masthead and trained them on the Orion. After he came down and had gone below, I went aloft and spent the rest of the morning trying to see what it was that Drislane may have seen on the deck of Oliver ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... the ship sailed out of the harbour, rounding the pier and the breakwater, churning the sea into a long white trail of foam as she set her course past the South Stack.... They could see the lights on her masthead diminishing as she went further away, and then, as the cold sea wind blew about them, they shivered and went home.... Now, lying here in this stillness, warm and snug, Henry could see those soldiers, huddled together ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Father Regan. "Perhaps the old captain was an Irishman. At any rate, there he lived, showing a light every night at his masthead to warn other ships off,—which was quite unnecessary of course, as the government attends ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... the first American man-of-war was lying moored. Captain Saltonstall, who was to command the ship, had not yet arrived from Boston, and at Hancock's direction, Lieutenant Jones took command, and ran up the first American flag ever shown from the masthead of a man-of-war. It was not the Stars and Stripes, which had not yet been adopted as the flag of the United States, but a flag showing a rattlesnake coiled at the foot of a pine-tree, with the words, "Don't tread ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... there were three other frigates, the Profound, the Violent, the Wasp. Ice locked round the fleet at the west end of Hudson Straits, and fog lay so thick there was nothing visible of any ship but the masthead. For eighteen days they lay, crunched and rammed and separated by the ice drive, till on August 25, early in the morning, the fog suddenly lifted. Iberville saw that Serigny's ship had been carried back {185} in the straits. The Wasp and Violent were not to ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... giving it out, Sam ran his flag up to the masthead in the shape of a ball. So it remained while we were singing; and during the prayer which followed; and when I gave out my text (Gen. 28:19), "He called the name of that place Bethel," Sam pulled the halyard, ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... ever took you—I am indeed—and I would give fifty pounds this minute to see you standing safe upon the Dundee quay. It's hit or miss with me this time. There are fish to the north of us. How dare you shake your head, sir, when I tell you I saw them blowing from the masthead?"—this in a sudden burst of fury, though I was not conscious of having shown any signs of doubt. "Two-and-twenty fish in as many minutes as I am a living man, and not one under ten foot.[1] Now, Doctor, do ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not ceased to exist between the friends when, after their long voyage, they sighted the volcanic craters of the lonely isle of Cagayan Sulu and beheld the Stars and Stripes waving from the masthead of the George Washington (Captain ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... quickly, for I felt somehow a wild desire to vindicate myself in Wolf Larsen's eyes, to prove my right to live in ways other than of the mind. Nay, the time came when I took joy in the run of the masthead and in the clinging on by my legs at that precarious height while I swept the sea with glasses ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... moment the monitor itself hung out a string of lights which winked, changed color, vanished, reappeared, and again vanished, leaving only a red light at the masthead. In a moment an answering signal-rocket was thrown up by an invisible war-ship in the direction of Fort Taylor, and instantly two powerful search-lights were focused upon a pale, whitish object, far out at sea, which looked ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... a word, Republican Simplicity found Europe with one shirt on her back, so to speak, as far as real luxuries, conveniences, and the comforts of life go, and has clothed her to the chin with the latter. We are the lavishest and showiest and most luxury-loving people on the earth; and at our masthead we fly one true and honest symbol, the gaudiest flag the world has ever seen. Oh, Republican Simplicity, there are many, many humbugs in the world, but none to which you ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the surface of the ocean, miles apart, with the convexity of the earth between, will sometimes dive at the same instant—all gone out of sight in a moment. The signal has been sounded—too grave for the ear of the sailor at the masthead and his comrades on the deck—who nevertheless feel its vibrations in the ship as the stones of a cathedral are stirred by the bass of ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... middle. They were so far off as to be of a deep blue color, and in a few hours we sank them in the north-east. These were the Falkland Islands. We had run between them and the main land of Patagonia. At sun-set the second mate, who was at the masthead, said that he saw land on the starboard bow. This must have been the island of Staten Land; and we were now in the region of Cape Horn, with a fine breeze from the northward, top-mast and top-gallant studding-sails ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the Lawrence, after the gallant commander of the Chesapeake, captured a short while before off Boston. As Lawrence, mortally wounded, was carried below, he said to his men, "Don't give up the ship." Perry put at the masthead of the Lawrence a blue pennant bearing the words "Don't give up the ship," and fought two of the largest vessels of the enemy till every gun on his engaged side was disabled, and but twenty men out of a hundred and three were ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... venial offence. I do not place much reliance upon the ethics of quotation books generally, but when I remember my own young days, and the things I did to discredit the other fellow in that little affair which has brought so much happiness into my own life, I am inclined to nail my flag to the masthead in defence of the principle that lovers can do no wrong. It is no ordinary stake that a lover plays for, and if he stacks the cards, and in other ways turns his back upon the guiding principles of his life, blameworthy as he may be, I shall not ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... and I lighted three masthead lights, to hoist at the fore to inform any passing craft that we were not under command; but, as I would not send a man forward on that job, I went myself, carefully feeling my way with the pike pole. Luckily, I escaped contact with the creature, and returned to the poop, ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... tree a company of fishermen were waiting with a letter. It was from their mates at Kinsale. They could not be at home that day, but their hearts were there. Every boat would fly her flag at the masthead, and at twelve o'clock noon every Manx fisherman on Irish waters would raise a cheer. If the Irishmen asked them what they meant by that, they would answer and say, "It's for the fisherman's friend, ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... at the foot of Walnut Street. On a brilliant morning early in February, 1776, gay streamers were seen floating from every masthead and spar on the river. At nine o'clock a full-manned barge threaded its way among the floating ice to the Alfred, bearing the commodore, who had chosen that vessel for his flagship. He was greeted with thunders of artillery and the ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... of the building, we would rig up a pirate's ship, and Granfa would fix the broom to the masthead to show that he, like ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... lain to above an hour when the man who had been sent to the masthead of L'Heureuse ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... an unusual story that it needs proof, and I give it. Did you not last autumn pretend that yours was a merchant ship, have a sailor play the violin on deck while others danced about, and lure under your guns a pirate with the black flag at her masthead?" ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in the bay, and which showed the British ensign at her masthead, was the identical ship that our old friend Mr. Mole had ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... Prince of Orange, where they smoke a silent pipe by way of promoting social conviviality, and invariably drink a mug of cider to the success of Admiral Van Tromp, whom they imagine is still sweeping the British Channel with a broom at his masthead. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... instead, peace-treaties, with relations of the most amicable kind. Were the polacca showing colours blood-red, or black, with death's-head and cross-bones, the chase would be intelligible. But the bit of bunting at her masthead has nothing on its field either of menace or defiance. On the contrary, it appeals to pity, and asks for aid; for it is an ensign reversed—in short, a signal ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... between this land and New Guinea. At noon, our latitude, by observation, was 13 deg. 2' S., longitude 216 deg. W.; which was 1 deg. 23' W. of Lizard Island: At this time we had no land in sight; but a little before one o'clock, we saw high land from the masthead, bearing W.S.W. At two, we saw more land to the N.W. of that we had seen before: It appeared in hills, like islands; but we judged it to be a continuation of the main land. About three, we discovered breakers between the land and the ship, extending to the southward farther ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... how delicately their sides are streaked with snow, where it has come to rest in narrow flutings and gorges. Mark, too, how grandly the banners wave as the wind is deflected against their sides, and how trimly each is attached to the very summit of its peak, like a streamer at a masthead; how smooth and silky they are in texture, and how finely their fading fringes are penciled on the azure sky. See how dense and opaque they are at the point of attachment, and how filmy and translucent toward the ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... as important in her trade as the masthead and black flag, the cutlasses and crimson sashes, the gold doubloons and damsels fair of pirate fiction; or the cheese and cream, old horses and slumberous lanes of rustic comedy. As important, and perhaps to be deemed as romantic some day; witness the rhapsodic advertisements ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... well manned—in which every timber and plank has been so fashioned as to contribute to the beauty and strength of the whole fabric, with a good seaman at the helm, the Constitution in the binnacle, and the stars and stripes at the masthead. When the time of my departure shall come, let me feel, let me know, that I leave those whom I love under the protection of a government good enough to secure the affection of its subjects, and strong enough to enforce their obedience. Remember that if a strong ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... little village of Brooklyn twinkled here and there for a time, then lay like a sombre shadow in the silences of her forest. As he returned, there was not a light anywhere, except now and again at a masthead, for it was very late. The clock in Trinity steeple struck one as he reentered the town. He moved through the narrow dark and crooked streets with a lagging step, although he had walked briskly for the past hour. There seemed to be no sleep in him, and the ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... dawning! My soul bounds upward On beams of light to the vault of heaven; My ship-steed sniffing its flank is laving With buoyant zest in the cooling billow. With song the sailor to masthead clambers To clear the sail that shall swell more freely, And thoughts are flying like birds aweary Round mast and yard-arm, but find no refuge. ... Yes, toward the ocean! To follow Vikar! To sail like him and to sink ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... October 24, I went to the masthead with the field-glasses but saw nothing of the party. On that day we weighed out provisions and made ready to go in search of them. It was my intention to go on the outward track for a week. I wrote instructions to Jones to hoist a large ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... ship was driving through a thick fog (in lat. 44.5, long. 41) a severe shock suddenly called Riou to the deck, where an appalling spectacle presented itself. The ship had struck upon an iceberg. A body of floating ice twice as high as the masthead was on the lee beam, and the ship appeared to be entering a sort of cavern in its side. In a few minutes the rudder was torn away, a severe leak was sprung, and all hands worked for bare life at the pumps. The ship became ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... Alfred was anchored at the foot of Walnut Street. On a brilliant morning early in February, 1776, gay streamers were seen floating from every masthead and spar on the river. At nine o'clock a full-manned barge threaded its way among the floating ice to the Alfred, bearing the commodore, who had chosen that vessel for his flagship. He was greeted with thunders of artillery and the shouts of ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... play, we shall find ourselves at the parting of the curtain which hangs between the real and the mimic world, on board a mediaeval ship, within a few hours' sail of Cornwall, whither Tristan is bearing Isolde to be the wife of his king Marke. The cheery song of a sailor who, unseen, at the masthead, sings to the winds which are blowing him away from his wild Irish sweetheart, floats down to us. It has a refreshing and buoyant lilt, this song, with something of the sea breeze in it, and yet something, as it is sung, which emphasizes ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Hambleton strained his eyes to see, the outlines of the rowboat merged into the dimness. It was pointed like a gun toward a large yacht lying at anchor farther out in the stream. The vessel swayed prettily to the current, and slowly swung its dim light from the masthead. ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... was gone, several great patches in her sails also attracted attention; there too was a field-piece mounted and lashed on the quarter-deck as a stern-chaser. The fore royal was furled, and two flags were hanging limply from the masthead; the light breeze from time to time fluttering them a little, but not sufficiently to disclose what they were, until just opposite High Street, where she dropped her only remaining anchor, when a sudden gust of ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... favorite way of hiding pearls is to tie the gems in a rag attached to the anchor that is thrown overboard when the boat lands. Another is to fasten a packet to a piece of rigging adroitly run to the masthead, there to remain until opportunity permits the dishonest schemer to remove ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... the more welcome inasmuch as Blake had previously suffered a signal defeat (28 Nov., 1652) at the hands of the Dutch admirals and had himself been wounded. Moreover Tromp had been so elated at his victory that in bravado he had fixed a broom to his masthead, in token of his resolution to sweep the sea of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... mission as the protectors and nurses of the weak. All the Mediterranean Sea was infested by corsairs from the African coast and the Greek isles, and these brave knights, becoming sailors as well as all they had been before, placed their red flag with its white cross at the masthead of many a gallant vessel that guarded the peaceful traveler, hunted down the cruel pirate, and brought home his Christian slave, rescued from laboring at the oar, to the Hospital for rest and tendance. Or their treasures were used in redeeming the captives in the pirate cities. ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stopped at the foot of the stairs and coughed distractedly. He felt marooned, held up, attacked, assailed, levied upon, sacked, assessed, panhandled, browbeaten, though he knew not why. It was the look in Hetty's eyes that did it. In them he saw the Jolly Roger fly to the masthead and an able seaman with a dirk between his teeth scurry up the ratlines and nail it there. But as yet he did not know that the cargo he carried was the thing that had caused him to be so nearly blown out of the water ...
— Options • O. Henry
... had anchored in the bay, and which showed the British ensign at her masthead, was the identical ship that our old friend Mr. ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... to the beach beyond, where their boat was already afloat on the incoming tide. They took their places without a word and pulled out in the direction of the ship. In the pass, rising and falling in the heavy swell, they burned a blue light, which the Dauntless answered with another, and ran up a masthead lantern to guide them. A few minutes later they clambered up the ladder, the boat was hoisted in, and the boatswain's whistle was rousing the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... week now since the sight of an enemy had gladdened the eyes of the Sumter's little crew, when, on the 25th of September, the welcome cry of "Sail, ho!" was once more heard from the masthead. Steam was at once got up, and the United States colors displayed from the Confederate cruiser. A short pause of expectation, an eager scrutiny of the stranger, as the blue and red bunting fluttered for a few moments upon his deck, while his men were busy with the ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... light shone upon the masthead. At any other time I should have known this to be a St. Elmo's fire, a corposant, the ignis fatuus of the deep, and hailed it with a seaman's faith in its promise of gentle weather. But to my distempered fancy it was ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... the small woody isle that was seen by Captain Flinders, and farther on we discovered two other isles of a similar character: they were seen from the masthead to the north-east; and a fourth was seen by the Dick. After this we had a few days of fine weather, which, as dysentery had already made its appearance amongst us, was most welcome, and tended materially to check the progress of so ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... hanging over the side ready to lower, tubs for coiling away the ropes, harpoons, lances, &c., all were ready to throw in, and start away at a moment's notice. The man in the "crow's-nest", as they call the cask fixed up at the masthead, was looking anxiously out for whales, and the crew were idling about the deck. Tom Lokins was seated on the windlass smoking his pipe, and I was sitting beside him on an empty ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... the art; that fidgeting ripple in the luff of the mainsail, and the distant rattle from the hungry jib—signs that they are starved of wind and must be given more; the heavy list and wallow of the hull, the feel of the wind on your cheek instead of your nose, the broader angle of the burgee at the masthead—signs that they have too much, and that she is sagging recreantly to leeward instead of fighting to windward. He taught me the tactics for meeting squalls, and the way to press your advantage when they are defeated—the iron hand in the velvet ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... strangers to the waters," surmised Clowes, wheeling and looking up the river townwards. "Ay, there goes some signal from the 'Charon's' truck," he went on, as the British frigate anchored off the town displayed three flags at her masthead. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... had not ceased to exist between the friends when, after their long voyage, they sighted the volcanic craters of the lonely isle of Cagayan Sulu and beheld the Stars and Stripes waving from the masthead of the George ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... such an island and you begin at once to understand the legends of enchantment which ages have collected around such spots. Climb to its heights, you seem at the masthead of some lonely vessel, kept forever at sea. You feel as if no one but yourself had ever landed there; and yet, perhaps, even there, looking straight downward, you see below you in some crevice of the rock a mast or spar of some wrecked ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... a voyage of discovery to the North Pole was locked in the ice, one morning the man at the masthead reported that three bears were making their way toward the vessel. They had, no doubt, been attracted by the scent of some blubber of a sea-horse which the crew was burning on the ice at the time. They proved to be a mother bear and her two cubs; but the cubs were nearly as large as ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... in an angry tone, "let her bury herself; and in order that her qualities may be tested before we reach this wonderful sea of yours, let the reefs out of the topsails and masthead them. I desire you to know, Mr Scrivener, that I shall be the judge when to shorten sail and when to set it. Do you imagine, sir, because I only commanded a collier before coming here that I do not know my business? Please remember that I am master ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... years' time had twice scattered Spanish fleets; defeated by Blake in 1652, but six months later beat back the English fleet in the Strait of Dover, after which he is said to have sailed down the Channel with a broom to his masthead as a sign he had swept his enemies from the seas; in 1653 Blake renewed the attack and inflicted defeat on him after a three days' struggle; in June and July Tromp was again defeated by the English, and in the last engagement off the coast of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... I had read of raising the drawbridge across the moat of some ancient feudal castle, and leaving the mole with its imitation portcullis behind we steamed out into the bay. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, and there was not enough wind to straighten out the pennant from the masthead. ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... strong. The sheets had been let go, the canvas was flapping in the wind, and the hands were aloft reducing sail. She was already some distance away from him. The sky was bright and clear, and Charlie, who was surprised at seeing no attempt to lower a boat, saw a signal run up to the masthead. ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... go on board at all events. The blue Peter was flying at the masthead, besides which there was a board announcing that she would sail with the morning's tide. It was the custom, in those days especially, for merchantmen to sail on a Sunday. The stages leading on board had been removed, with ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... remind them of their native forests which they would never see again. When the masts were swung into place, they were made fast with shrouds and stays; and finally a flag of red, white, and blue was unfurled at the masthead and displayed its stars and stripes ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... few minutes after seven o'clock when she arrived at the entrance to Ambrose Channel. She was coming fast steaming at better than fifteen knots an hour, and she was sighted long before she was expected. Except for the usual side and masthead lights she was almost dark, only the upper cabins showing a glimmer ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... had bathed in the pure springs of Radicalism; and it should be remarked that Beauchamp deceived him by imitating his air of happy abstraction, or subordination of the faculties to a distant view, comparable to a ship's crew in difficulties receiving the report of the man at the masthead. Beauchamp deceived Miss Denham too, and himself, by saying, as if he cherished the philosophy of defeat, besides ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... gunshot range, the black flag suddenly fluttered from every masthead of the Sea Devil, and a bullet, hissing between the Royal Fortune's sails was the challenge to speak. The deepest silence reigned on Barthelemy's ship. The Sea Devil sailed close up to it, the Dutch consort remaining a little behind. "Oho! ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... sunshine her sails will be gleaming, See, where my ship comes in; At masthead and peak her colors streaming, Proudly she's sailing in; Love, hope and joy on her decks are cheering, Music will welcome her glad appearing, And my heart will sing at her stately nearing, When my ship ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... his appointment the admiral showed a flicker of emotion. He took the silken emblem, and passed his hand reverently over its surface. "I am the admiral," he said to the collector's lady. Being on land he could bring himself to no more exuberant expression of sentiment. At sea with the flag at the masthead of his navy, some more eloquent exposition ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... into the habit of beating Nancy about the head? If he cannot, he is no bishop, though he had a mitre as high as Salisbury steeple; he is no bishop,—he has sought to be at the helm instead of the masthead; he has no sight of things. "Nay," you say, "it is not his duty to look after Bill in the back street." What! the fat sheep that have full fleeces—you think it is only those he should look after, while (go back to your Milton) "the ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... especially from the last, dates the maritime supremacy of England. Since then her commerce, protected and advertised by the most powerful navy in the world, has mounted by leaps and bounds, so that now half the vessels which sail the seas bear at their masthead the Union Jack. From her dominions beyond the oceans and from her ships upon the seas Great Britain drew power and prestige; British merchants acquired opulence with resulting social and political importance to themselves and to their country, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... provocative of contempt than even drunkenness in a drawing-room. He tells us how dreadfully frightened he was by a storm at sea in the Hebrides, and how one of his companions, "with a happy readiness," made him lay hold of a rope fastened to the masthead, and told him to pull it when he was ordered. Boswell was thus kept quiet in ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... next morning it being calm with a great swell, we saw from the masthead, but could not bring them down no lower than halfway to topmast shrouds, four sail bearing South-South-East, distance 7 leagues. We lost sight about seven, though very clear, and sometime after a small breeze springing up from the South-West ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... and plank has been so fashioned as to contribute to the beauty and strength of the whole fabric, with a good seaman at the helm, the Constitution in the binnacle, and the stars and stripes at the masthead. When the time of my departure shall come, let me feel, let me know, that I leave those whom I love under the protection of a government good enough to secure the affection of its subjects, and strong enough to enforce their obedience. Remember that if a strong government be sometimes ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... bloody conflict took place between Blake and Tromp, seconded by De Ruyter, near the Goodwin Sands. In this determined action Blake was wounded and defeated; five English ships, taken, burned, or sunk; and night saved the fleet from destruction. After this victory Tromp placed a broom at his masthead, as if to intimate that he would sweep the Channel free of all ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... they have information," said Marah grimly, "otherwise they'd not be looking for us here. Some one had been talking to his wife." He hailed the masthead again. "Have ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... declared herself a "republic" Hertzog took the cue and counted his cause in with that of the "small nations" that needed self-determination. "Afrika for the Afrikans," the old motto of the Afrikander Bond, was unfurled from the masthead and the sedition spread. It not only recruited the Boers who had an ancient grievance against Great Britain, but many others who secretly resented the Botha and Smuts intimacy with "the conquerors." Some were sons and grandsons of the old "Vortrekkers," who not only delighted to speak ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... the water-side they rushed, And some knee-deep beyond it, all one wild Welcome to Francis Drake! Wild kerchiefs fluttering, thunderous hurrahs Rolling from quay to quay, a thousand arms Outstretched to that grey ghostly little ship At whose masthead the British flag still flew; Then, over all, in one tumultuous tide Of pealing joy, the Plymouth bells outclashed A nation's welcome home ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... day or two. Her sails were hoisted at once, and she rowed out from the port. Having proceeded some three or four miles, they lowered her sails, and lay to in the course a galley making for the port would take. A sailor was sent up to the masthead to keep a lookout. Late in the afternoon he called down that he could make out a black speck some twelve miles away. She carried no sails, and he judged ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... and the after part of the keel being the only part of the vessel that touched, she cannot have received any material damage. This shoal appeared to be of small extent, composed of sand and coral; it is not laid down in the chart, but is very dangerous, not being visible from the masthead. I went aloft after crossing it, and could perceive no indication of shoal water. The bearings I got when on the shoal were, the outer or larger Hannibal Island, South-East 1/2 East, the inner one (only a solitary tree visible) South by East ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... firing of a battery of cannon; now and then there was a flaw of rain, and the surf rolled heavier with the rising tide. I was down at my observatory among the elders, when a light was run up to the masthead of the schooner, and showed she was closer in than when I had last seen her by the dying daylight. I concluded that this must be a signal to Northmour's associates on shore; and, stepping forth into the links, looked around me for ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... aviator manoeuvred to drop a bomb into the funnel, from a height of 300 feet, but the three bombs thrown missed the ship; he says the attack took place at 7 P.M., but there was ample light for the aviator to see the ship's name in eight-foot letters, and the American flags at the masthead and the taffrail; Secretary Bryan has cabled to Ambassador Gerard, asking whether the action of the German Government in placing the William P. Frye case in a prize court is the reply to the American note stating that the United States did not ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... first loosed from its lashings, had been launched long before any of the others,—for it was only after an interval of reflection that he had set free the rest,—and the former were now far to windward. When looking from the masthead he had noted that the position of the swimmers was not so far beyond the kit; and it was scarce possible at that time, that they could have failed to discover it. Without staying to consider whether they had done so or not, William had come down from his perch; and now ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... Doctor," he said, "I'm sorry I ever took you—I am indeed—and I would give fifty pounds this minute to see you standing safe upon the Dundee quay. It's hit or miss with me this time. There are fish to the north of us. How dare you shake your head, sir, when I tell you I saw them blowing from the masthead?"—this in a sudden burst of fury, though I was not conscious of having shown any signs of doubt. "Two-and-twenty fish in as many minutes as I am a living man, and not one under ten foot.[1] Now, Doctor, do you think I can leave the country when there is only one infernal strip of ice between ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her rigging had an old-fashioned cut. Her masts were checked with age and, where our craft showed polished brass, she long ago had resorted to white paint. At the same time, she gave the impression of aristocracy—broken-down aristocracy, if you choose. No bunting fluttered at her masthead, no country's emblem waved over her taffrail, and the only hint of nationality or ownership was a rather badly painted word Orchid on her name plate. Taken altogether, she ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... vessels of the fleet found themselves off the point; and one legua to leeward, and seaward, they sighted the corsair's two vessels riding at anchor. As soon as the latter recognized our ships and saw that they flung captain's and admiral's colors at the masthead, they weighed anchor and set sail from their anchorage, after having first reenforced the flagship with a boatload of men from their almiranta, which stood to sea, while the flagship hove to, and awaited our fleet, firing several pieces at long range. ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... Carker. 'Upon the whole we have not had our usual good fortune of late, but that is of little moment to you. At Lloyd's, they give up the Son and Heir for lost. Well, she was insured, from her keel to her masthead.' ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... furled all her canvas. ... Can any one see a light aboard? No! And no light on the masthead, either! Look out, Victor!" Now the cutter was alongside; Victor stood waiting on the gunwale, and the next time she rose on the crest of a big wave, he leapt into the rigging of the brig, while the cutter sheered off, tacked, and made ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... hooker gained the neck of the crook and entered it. Against the clear sky the masthead was visible, rising above the split blocks between which the strait wound as between two walls. The truck wandered to the summit of the rocks, and appeared to run into them. Then it was seen no more—all was over—the bark had gained ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Drislane said nothing, but every moment the compass could spare his eyes saw them roaming across to where the Orion, like ourselves, was plugging through the short green seas for home. When his watch was done he borrowed my glasses, climbed by painful relays to the masthead and trained them on the Orion. After he came down and had gone below, I went aloft and spent the rest of the morning trying to see what it was that Drislane may have seen on the deck of ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... —while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine! Sail ho! cried a triumphant voice from the main-masthead. Aye? Well, now, that's cheering, cried Ahab, suddenly erecting himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better man. —Where away? Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Just outside, a ship was heaving on the surge, so trimly sparred, so glossily painted, so elegant and point-device in every feature, that my heart was seized with admiration. The English colours blew from her masthead; and from my high station, I caught glimpses of her snowy planking, as she rolled on the uneven deep, and saw the sun glitter on the brass of her deck furniture. There, then, was my ship of refuge; and of ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... do above or the fishes beneath his ship, man is the only thing to steer; the only thing to be conceived as steering. He may make the birds his friends, if he can. He may make the fishes his gods, if he chooses. But most certainly he will not believe a bird at the masthead; and it is hardly likely that he will even permit a fish at the helm. He is, as Swinburne says, helmsman and chief: he is literally the ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... setting sail from the Cape, while the ship was driving through a thick fog (in lat. 44.5, long. 41) a severe shock suddenly called Riou to the deck, where an appalling spectacle presented itself. The ship had struck upon an iceberg. A body of floating ice twice as high as the masthead was on the lee beam, and the ship appeared to be entering a sort of cavern in its side. In a few minutes the rudder was torn away, a severe leak was sprung, and all hands worked for bare life at the pumps. The ship became comparatively unmanageable, and masses ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... the honour to inform you that on the 19th instant, at 2 P.M., being in latitude 41 deg. 42', longitude 55 deg. 48', with the Constitution under my command, a sail was discovered from the masthead bearing E. by S. or E. S. E., but at such a distance we could not tell what she was. All sail was instantly made in chase, and we soon found we came up with her. At 3 P.M. could plainly see that she was a ship on the starboard tack, under easy sail, close ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... half way up to the masthead and no one had seen them. The second mate still paced the bridge with his back to him. He glanced at the captain's cabin. No one ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... river. As they drew away from the canoes in which, with heavy hearts and sad faces, the motionless Indians watched the receding form of their beloved young chief, of a sudden the banners of France were flung to the breeze from each masthead, and a tremendous roar of artillery gave ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... lighted three masthead lights, to hoist at the fore to inform any passing craft that we were not under command; but, as I would not send a man forward on that job, I went myself, carefully feeling my way with the pike pole. Luckily, I escaped contact ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... the voice of the Master. He, too, is steering seaward,—not more bravely, not more truly, but a directer course. He will pilot her past the breakers and the quicksands. He will bring her to the haven where she would be. O brave little bark! Is it Love that watches at the masthead? Is it Wisdom that stands at the helm? Is it Strength that curves the ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... soft, and waited—waited till that trailing monster, the Persian fleet, had crept halfway from Psyttaleia toward them, then up the shrouds of the Spartan admiral leaped a flag. Eager hands drew it, yet it seemed mounting as a snail, till at the masthead the clear wind blew it wide,—a plain red banner, but as it spread hundreds of axes were hewing the cables that bound the triremes to the shore, every Greek oar was biting the sea, the ships were leaping away from Salamis. From the strand a shout went up, a prayer more than ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... salt water, with here and there a few openings near it, studded with casuarinae, to this we bent our steps, and at twelve miles from our last night's camp took up our position in lat. 33 degrees 14 minutes 36 seconds S. upon the lagoon seen by Flinders from the masthead. ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... to be of a deep blue color, and in a few hours we sank them in the north-east. These were the Falkland Islands. We had run between them and the main land of Patagonia. At sun-set the second mate, who was at the masthead, said that he saw land on the starboard bow. This must have been the island of Staten Land; and we were now in the region of Cape Horn, with a fine breeze from the northward, top-mast and top-gallant studding-sails set, and every prospect of a ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... brothers that they best knew the Dioscuri in the good old days of the upper empire; and when the new religion forbade them any longer to worship those vain heathen deities, they managed to hand over the flames at the masthead to an imaginary St. Elmo, whose protection stood them in just as good stead as that of the original ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... starlit empty darkness of the Maidan, where presently he stumbled upon a wooden bench under a tree. There, after a little, sleep fell upon his amazement, and he lay unconscious for an hour or two, while the breeze stole across the grass from the river, and the masthead lights watched beside the city. He woke chilled and normal, and when he reached the Mission House in College street his servant was surprised at the unusual ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... there, no more than there is up aloft, 'when the stormy winds do blow.' Consciences get raked fore and aft, sins are blown clean out of the water, false colors are hauled down and true ones run up to the masthead, and many an immortal soul is warned to steer off in time from the pirates, rocks and quicksands of temptation. He's a regular revolving light, is the Captain,—a beacon always burning and saying plainly, 'Here are life-boats, ready ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... property; and no one can read such tales as "Press On" (Gaa Paa) and "Rutland" without agreeing that the title is well merited. I know of no English novelist since Smollett, who produces so deep a sense of reality in his descriptions of maritime life. Mr. Clark Russell, who knows his ship from masthead to keel as thoroughly as Jonas Lie, and writes fully as clever a story, seems to me to have a lower aim, in so far as the novel of adventure, caeteris paribus, belongs on a lower level than the novel ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... from a falling spool. He held her fiercely to him and kissed her. "I'll tell you a secret. You are being stolen. The Isis is waiting in a little cove, and there is steam in her engines, and a chaplain on board. If it's necessary I shall run up the skull and cross-bones at her masthead. Do you hear?" Then, with a less piratical ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... light on the Southern Cross was moving. But it was impossible that she should weigh anchor in the teeth of the rising storm. He was mistaken. Nay, he was sure. But it was rising, slowly, steadily, as though drawn by an invisible hand, to about the height of the masthead. There at last it stopped, and swung to the wind, to and fro, to and fro; high above its red companion, high above ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... of the bell uttered the summons, as well as the resonant voice of the Muezzin, who to-day did not call the worshippers to devotion from the top of a minaret, but from the masthead of a ship. On both sides of the narrow seagate, thousands of Moslems and Christians thought, hoped and believed, that the Omnipotent One ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... o'clock there was a tremendous explosion in the Pharos Fort, and now only an occasional gun answered the fire of the assailants. This soon ceased, and at four some signal flags were seen to run up to the masthead of the Invincible, and instantly the fire from the British ships ceased, and a dead silence succeeded the din of battle that had continued ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... later a masthead lamp blinked from the Vega—the senior officer's ship of the patrol flotilla. Then, in line ahead, the swift motor craft slipped quietly out of the harbour to overtake their ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... whales basking or sporting on the surface of the ocean, miles apart, with the convexity of the earth between them, will sometimes dive at the same instant—all gone out of sight in a moment. The signal has been sounded—too grave for the ear of the sailor at the masthead and his comrades on the deck—who nevertheless feel its vibrations in the ship as the stones of a cathedral are stirred by ...
— The Damned Thing - 1898, From "In the Midst of Life" • Ambrose Bierce
... saffron dawn, a frigate lifted Out of the fog that veiled her fold on fold, Taking the early sunlight on her cannon In running spurts and rings of molten gold; No flag of any nation at her masthead. Small wonder that our ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... wish it were down." Without waiting for any orders, and unobserved by the pilot, the lad, whom they had taken on board from the school, instantly mounted the mast and lowered the royal, and at the next glance of the pilot to the masthead, he perceived that the sail had been let down. He exclaimed, "Who's done that job?" The owner, who was on board, said, "That was the little fellow whom I put on board two days ago." The pilot immediately said, "Why, where could he have been ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... now lying over until her masthead was but a few feet above water. The seas were striking her with tremendous force, pouring a deluge of ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... threshold of Asia, the beginning of an inland journey of seven thousand miles from the Bosporus to the Pacific. Through the morning fog which enveloped the shipping in the Golden Horn, the "stars and stripes" at a single masthead were waving farewell to two American students fresh from college who had nerved themselves for nearly two years of separation from the ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... pull up the anchor with?" he was saying. "Why, with yonder big rope that goes from masthead to bows." and he pointed to the great mainstay of our ship. "One must have a long purchase, if you know what ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... dead with wet, cold, fatigue and danger, a vessel came in sight and crept slowly up, about two miles to windward of the distressed boat. With the heave of the waters they could see little more than her sails; but they ran up a bright bandanna handkerchief to their masthead; and the ship made them out. She hoisted Dutch colors, and—continued ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... of the master of the shore batteries. Rather than have his ship blown to bits, Bainbridge swallowed his wrath and submitted. On the eve of departure, he had to submit to another indignity. The colors of Algiers must fly at the masthead. Again Bainbridge remonstrated and again the Dey looked casually at his guns trained on the frigate. So off the frigate sailed with the Dey's flag fluttering from her masthead, and her captain ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... their way to pass through Torres Strait. A line of coast extending from Cape Rodney to the westward and northward about eighty miles, the latter half with a continuous line of reef running parallel with the coast, is laid down in a chart by Flinders,* as having been "seen from the Providence's masthead, August 30th 1792." ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... between them with a savage little laugh that seems to mean: "What are we going to do to him?" Extract money from him, as much of it as possible. It must be had in order to float the Caisse Territorial, which has been aground for years, buried in sand to her masthead. A magnificent operation, this of floating her again, if we are to believe these two gentlemen; for the buried craft is full of ingots, of valuable merchandise, of the thousand varied treasures of a new country of which every one is talking ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... throw out the sail! Run the red flag of revolution to the masthead of our frail craft, and ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... and a brig—were seen coming round a headland. The captain and officers examined them with their telescopes, and a flag was run up to the masthead. Almost immediately two answering flags were hoisted by the strangers, and an exclamation of ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... love theme. A tremendous climax is worked up: the very ecstasy and madness of love; it dies down, and the prelude ends with a sinister and tragic phrase (d), leading straight to a sea-song sung from the masthead of a vessel, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... laughed Father Regan. "Perhaps the old captain was an Irishman. At any rate, there he lived, showing a light every night at his masthead to warn other ships off,—which was quite unnecessary of course, as the government attends to all such ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... different thing from furling a royal in a light breeze. When I had got to the topgallant masthead, the yard was well down by the lifts and steadied by the braces, but the clews were not hauled chock up to the blocks. Leaning out precariously, I won Mr. Thomas's attention with greatest difficulty, and shrieked to have it ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... Knot. The jury knot is useful when a jury mast has to be rigged, as the loops form a means of attaching the necessary supports to the mast. The centre k (Fig. 120) is slipped over the masthead, and the weight brought on the stays tightens it and holds it in ...
— Knots, Bends, Splices - With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging • J. Netherclift Jutsum
... we might as well get under way;" and at half-past six the monitors stood down to their stations, while the column of wooden ships was formed, all with the United States flag hoisted, not only at the peak, but also at every masthead. The four monitors, trusting in their iron sides, steamed in between the wooden ships and the fort. Every man in every craft was thrilling with the fierce excitement of battle; but in the minds of most there lurked a vague feeling of unrest over ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... steadily. The wind had freshened a good deal, and the ship was now coming up fast to them. Two others had come out after her, but were some miles astern. They had already made out that the ship was flying a flag at her masthead, and although they had not been able to distinguish its colors, Vincent felt sure that it was the right ship; for he felt certain that the captain would get up sail as soon as possible, so as to come up with them ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... to his family. The second, in consequence, had become first. He was a thorough seaman, and carried on the duty with a tight hand. Woe betide the unfortunate mid who was remiss in his duties: the masthead or double watches were sure to be his portion. When the former, he hung out to dry two and sometimes four hours. The mids designated him "The Martinet." The second lieutenant was an elderly man, something of the old school, and not very polished, fond of spinning a tough ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... of the 10th of September, a sailor at the masthead of the Lawrence sighted the British squadron steering across the lake with a fair wind and ready to give battle. Perry instantly sent his crews to quarters and trimmed sail to quit the bay and form ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... exclaimed, as he pointed to a vessel, from whose masthead floated a flag with the arms of the Earl of March. "She is just entering the port. They did chase us after all, you see, but they did not ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... the duel began in deadly earnest. The tricolor ran up to the masthead of the French cruiser, and jets of mingled smoke and flame spurted one after the other from her sides, and shells began bursting in quick succession round the rapidly-advancing Englishman. Evidently the Frenchman, with his remaining torpedo-boat, thought himself ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... I want," he said, fixing a rope to the severed rigging and going aloft with it. Having passed it through a block he told them to haul away. When the upper end had reached the masthead he lashed it there as securely as ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... spectacle; there was by contrast a fine large sense of space and ease in her present position. The curtain rose out of the concluding bars of the overture and revealed Isolde on the prow of the barbaric ship. The voice of the young seaman came floating down from the masthead, and the story of the immortal lovers had begun. She knew the story only imperfectly, and followed it now with a passionate and deepening interest. The splendid voices sang on from phase to phase ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... unusual story that it needs proof, and I give it. Did you not last autumn pretend that yours was a merchant ship, have a sailor play the violin on deck while others danced about, and lure under your guns a pirate with the black flag at her masthead?" ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... harbour, the soldiers in the entrance castle blowing their trumpets in welcome as we passed between them. The captain of the port had run up my banner to the masthead of his boat, having been provided with one apparently for this purpose of announcement, and from the quays, across the vast basin of the harbour, there presently came to us the noises of musicians, and the ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... looked away up to the masthead, trembling at the thought of spending the night there, but he had ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... explained; and he protested against the impudence of scratching its back on our keel. As we sailed farther north many a school of rolling finbacks glistened silver in the sun or rose higher than our masthead, when one took the death-leap to escape its leagued foes—swordfish and thrasher and shark. And to give you an idea of the fearful tide breaking through the narrow fiords of that rock-bound coast, I may ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... first to come into action, passed on in an endeavour to turn the left wing of the allies. While this manoeuvre was in progress Ali, the Capitan-Basha of the Turks, arrived in his vessel opposite to the royal galley of Don John. At the masthead of the galley of the Capitan-Bashaw floated the sacred standard of the Ottomans. This, the ancient banner of the Caliphs, was covered with texts from the Koran, and had upon it the name of Allah emblazoned ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... might never have been known as the real master of "Standard Oil." But if he is missing when the public is hurrahing, he is sufficiently in evidence when clouds lower or when the danger-signal is run to the masthead at 26 Broadway. He who reads "Standard Oil" history will note that, from its first deal until this day, whenever bricks, cabbages, or aged eggs were being presented to "Standard Oil," always were Henry H. Rogers' towering form and defiant eye to be seen in ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... to make voyages to Port Albert for flour, or tea, or sugar. The last time they sailed together the barometer was low, and a gale was brewing. When they left the wharf they had taken on board all the stores they required, and more; they were happy and glorious. Next day the masthead of their boat was seen sticking out of the water near Sunday Island. The pilot schooner went down and hauled the boat to the surface, but nothing was found in her except the sand-ballast and a bottle of rum. Her sheet ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... messenger into the great cabin to report. He was barely out of sight before a second cry came from the masthead: "Another sail ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... soul bounds upward On beams of light to the vault of heaven; My ship-steed sniffing its flank is laving With buoyant zest in the cooling billow. With song the sailor to masthead clambers To clear the sail that shall swell more freely, And thoughts are flying like birds aweary Round mast and yard-arm, but find no refuge. ... Yes, toward the ocean! To follow Vikar! To sail like him and to sink as he did, For great King Olaf the ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... own private shallop, all spangled with coloured lights, stole across the iron-grey water, and disappeared into the darkness of a slip. She came out again in three minutes, but the full day had come too; so she snapped off her masthead, steering and cabin electrics, and turned into a dingy white ferryboat, full of cold passengers. I spoke to a Canadian about her. 'Why, she's the old So-and-So, to Port Levis,' he answered, wondering as the Cockney wonders when a stranger stares at ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... demands of his companion the knack of calm, consecutive thought. This is one reason why so many more Auto-Comrades are to be found in crow's-nests, gypsy-vans, and shirt-waist factories than on upper Fifth Avenue. For, watching the stars and the sea from a swaying masthead, taking light-heartedly to the open road, or even operating a rather unwholesome sewing-machine all day in silence, is better for consecutiveness of mind than a never-ending round of offices, clubs, committees, servants, dinners, teas, and receptions, ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... fairest and most goodly cape in all the world, and the most welcome to set eyes on. Rounding the Cape, he directed his course for Sierra Leone and the Coast of Guinea, and, coming into waters that he knew, he continued northward until the shores of England were sighted from his masthead. And at last he dropped anchor triumphantly in Plymouth harbor after a voyage ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... or Other Serials Any location acceptable for books As part of, or adjacent to, the masthead or on the page containing the masthead Adjacent to a prominent heading, appearing at or near the front of the issue, containing the title of the periodical and any combination of the volume and issue number ...
— Supplementary Copyright Statutes • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... sometimes a man would laugh, and sometimes a man would swear ... and then the ship sailed out of the harbour, rounding the pier and the breakwater, churning the sea into a long white trail of foam as she set her course past the South Stack.... They could see the lights on her masthead diminishing as she went further away, and then, as the cold sea wind blew about them, they shivered and went home.... Now, lying here in this stillness, warm and snug, Henry could see those soldiers, huddled together on the ship. He could imagine ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... and near the dark trawlers heaved to the soft swell, and they looked picturesque enough; but the strange vessel was handsomer than any of the fishing-boats, and Jim's curiosity was roused. The new smack was flying a flag at her masthead, but Jim could not read well enough to make out the inscription on the flag. He said, "Who's he?" and his mate answered, "A blank mission ship. Lot o' blokes come round preachin' ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... knots and at thirty knots a little ship doesn't need a masthead sea to get action. We went into it head first. It came right on over our bow, over our foc'sle head, over the forward gun. The shield to the forward gun stood probably six feet above the foc'sle deck. That wave rolled right ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... if they agreed to take the usual oaths before Joss. Three or four of them refused to comply, for which they were punished in the following cruel manner: their hands were tied behind their backs, a rope from the masthead rove through their arms, and hoisted three or four feet from the deck, and five or six men flogged them with their rattans twisted together till they were apparently dead; then hoisted them up to the mast-head, and left them ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... pretty much out of the season, what they were used to be in it. First, the shop where they sell the sailors' watches, which had still the old collection of enormous timekeepers, apparently designed to break a fall from the masthead: with places to wind them up, like fire-plugs. Secondly, the shop where they sell the sailors' clothing, which displayed the old sou'-westers, and the old oily suits, and the old pea-jackets, and the old one sea-chest, with its handles like a pair of rope ear-rings. Thirdly, the ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... ventured out on the highest slab of the landing-steps. Across the river, to be sure, there lay—between a local junk and a stray papico from the north—the high-nosed Hakka boat, her deck roofed with tawny basket-work, and at her masthead a wooden rice-measure dangling below a green rag. Aft, by the great steering-paddle, perched a man, motionless, yet seeming to watch. Heywood turned, however, and pointed downstream to where, at the bend of the river, a little ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... morrow. As the stars rose it was as though the lights of the city themselves were rising into the clear sky, emblems of the vast and serene power that had sent them forth. High above the level constellations soared the two great beacons of the Metropolitan and Woolworth towers, like the masthead lights of some enormous vessel, while away northward, almost hidden by the swinging limbs of our elm, the occulting flash on the Times Building added a disquieting element to the otherwise peaceful scene. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... a lifelong and ardent Republican, with a temper as peppery as the chile con carne upon which, when commander of a steam freighter trading with Mexico, he had feasted so often—Captain Sam would have hoisted the Stars and Stripes to the masthead the day the Lusitania sank and put to sea in a dory, if need be, and armed only with a shotgun, to avenge that outrage. To hear Captain Sam orate concerning the neglect of duty of which he considered ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... eyelet-hole has been fixed in our vessel save through the bitter experience of centuries; one might write a volume about that mainsail, showing how its rigid, slanting beauty and its tremendous power were gradually attained by evolution from the ugly square lump of matting which swung from the masthead of Mediterranean craft. But we must not philosophise; we must enjoy. The fresh morning breeze runs merrily over the ripples and plucks off their crests; our vessel leans prettily, and you hear a tinkling hiss as she shears through the lovely ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... mare turned her head and looked. And, for the first time sence she hove anchor on that flat, the critter unfurled her ears and histed 'em to the masthead. ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of them part from the others and go in chase of the privateer. Would they catch her? We forgot our fatigue and wounds, so fascinated were we in watching the pursuit, and the other two vessels were within hailing distance of us almost before we were aware. English colors were now flying at our masthead, and a voice through a speaking trumpet called ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... strong platforms projecting from the ship's sides. These "chains" were clamped to the ship's sides with rigid links of iron. The shrouds of the after masts were generally set up within the bulwarks. On each mast, just above the lower yard, yet below the masthead, was a fighting-top built of elm wood and gilded over. It was a little platform, resting on battens, and in ancient times it was circular, with a diameter of perhaps six or seven feet. It had a parapet round it, inclining ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... at me. Through the door I could see the hills and the harbour beyond the high stern, and on that Thorgils was steering, with his eyes on the vane at the masthead. His men were coiling down ropes, and Evan's two men were sitting under the weather gunwale aft, talking with the guards of the princess. She was in the after cabin, I suppose, out of the way of the wind, with her maidens. ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... the tide was nigh the full. At a signal from the masthead of the largest ship there spread a sudden activity throughout the fleet, and immediately a number of boats were lowered. For this the abbe had been waiting. Snatching a blazing splinter of pine from the hearth of a cottage close to the church, he rushed up to the homely but sacred building ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... till night the scene of bustle and preparation went on, and when darkness fell the whole host had embarked. Every ship was ordered to bear a light, and a huge lantern was hoisted at the masthead of the Mora, the duke's own ship, and orders were issued that all vessels should follow the light. The Mora, however, was a quick sailer, and was not, like the other vessels, deeply laden down with horses and men. When daylight broke, therefore, she had so far outstripped the rest that no ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... off Porto Rico, a sail was descried from the masthead. The stranger at once bore down on the corvette. She was soon made out to be a large ship. No thought of flight entered the heads of any one. If Spanish, they would take her; if French, they might hope to beat her off. All hands were rather disappointed when she made the signal of ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... forenoon of the 21st we saw the island Caow from the masthead, bearing north-west by west three-quarters west. This island is a high mountain with a sharp-pointed top, and is the north-westernmost of all the Friendly Islands. At noon we saw it very distinctly from the deck, it being then nineteen ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... days out from England a black column of smoke was seen to port, and presently the contour of a heavy battleship could be determined bearing down on us. There was wild excitement till the Cross of St. George could be distinguished at her masthead. It was the ill-fated Queen Mary, our latest and finest battle-cruiser. At an almost incredible speed she overtook us and passed up our lines with her crew manning the decks and her band ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... ("Geographical Journal", volume vii., page 229), a low extensive island in nearly the same latitude, about three degrees westward of the longitude assigned to Rotches, but very probably it is the same island. Mr. Bennett informs me that the man at the masthead reported an appearance of lagoon-water in the centre; and, therefore, considering its position, I have coloured it blue. —PITT Island, at the extreme northern point of the group, is left uncoloured, as its ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... Ned to his masthead he runs a rag of the Queen's, With a rusty sword and a moke on board to bray ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... the neglect could be surreptitiously repaired; and meanwhile, he was free to pass the afternoon on the encircling divan of the billiard-room, smoking his pipe, sipping a pint of ale, and enjoying to the masthead the modest pleasures ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Close at my feet I saw a haven, set in precipitous and palm-crowned bluffs of rock. Just outside, a ship was heaving on the surge, so trimly sparred, so glossily painted, so elegant and point-device in every feature, that my heart was seized with admiration. The English colours blew from her masthead; and, from my high station, I caught glimpses of her snowy planking, as she rolled on the uneven deep, and saw the sun glitter on the brass of her deck furniture. There, then, was my ship of refuge; and of all my difficulties only one remained: to get ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sick man. He had gone to see him in a spirit friendly with old memories, forgetful of their long quarrel in the stirred emotions of the past days of youth and first manhood; and he had shouted at Barzil as if he were a lubber at the masthead. ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... she proposes a jaunt to Suez and to Damietta. I have got a superb illumination to-night, improvised by Omar in honour of the Prince of Wales's marriage, and consequently am writing with flaring candles, my lantern being on duty at the masthead, and the men are singing an epithalamium and beating the tarabookeh ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... carried them up the mast with the agility of monkeys. There was one in especial—a slight, well-made fellow about twenty, with a white turban cleaner than the rest—who contrived to cast wonderful glances from the masthead over the barrier at Rosette, who actually smiled in return at ce pauvre garcon, and smiled the more for Mademoiselle Julienne's indignation. Suddenly, however, a shrill shout made him descend hastily, and the old Turk's voice might be heard in its highest key, no doubt shrieking ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... officers were not parties to the capitulation, which was drawn up and signed on board Porter's flag-ship, the Harriet Lane. While the representatives were seated in her cabin, flags of truce flying from her masthead and from the forts, the Louisiana was fired by her commander and came drifting down the river in flames. Her guns discharged themselves as the heat reached their charges, and when she came abreast Fort St. Philip she blew up, killing a Confederate soldier and nearly killing Captain McIntosh, ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... The green starboard light threw a light over only a small part of the deck. The red light did no better. The masthead was possibly thirty feet above the hull, and served no illuminating purpose whatever. From the bridge forward the deck was ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the sound of water fretted by the wind—deep, black water whose depths no wind could stir. At Helen's right hand a different darkness was made by the larch-trees clothing Halkett's hollow, and on her left a yellow gleam, like the light at the masthead of a ship at sea, betrayed her home. Behind her, and on the other side of the road, the Brent Farm dogs began to bark, and in the next instant they were answered from many points of the moor, so that houses and farmsteads became materialized ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... effect of the moonlight on the bright ripples and on the wooded heights of Long Island. The little village of Brooklyn twinkled here and there for a time, then lay like a sombre shadow in the silences of her forest. As he returned, there was not a light anywhere, except now and again at a masthead, for it was very late. The clock in Trinity steeple struck one as he reentered the town. He moved through the narrow dark and crooked streets with a lagging step, although he had walked briskly for the past hour. There seemed to be no sleep ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... covered with masses of gray cloud, ragged and torn, hurrying along with great velocity, apparently but a short distance above the masthead. When the vessel rose on a wave, it seemed to him that the clouds, in places, almost touched the water, and mingled with the masses of spray caught up by the waves. The scud, borne along by the wind, struck his face with a force ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... world, sir; and I ha' been in all sorts o' company, pirates and all, sir; and I aint a bit frightened of a parson. No; I love a parson, sir. And I'll tell you for why, sir. He's got a good telescope, and he gits to the masthead, and he looks out. And he sings out, 'Land ahead!' or 'Breakers ahead!' and gives directions accordin'. Only I can't always make out what he says. But when he shuts up his spyglass, and comes down the riggin', and talks to us ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... wounded men were suffering greatly. This permission was refused, and the slight—very slight—nautical flavor to the queries, and the hopeful condition of the stricken ones, decided Mr. Jackson to leave the police flag at the masthead. ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... seized hold of the opinion of this commonwealth—the avowed and proclaimed enemies of the Constitution of the United States,"—with further hysteric talk about the ship of state, with the pirate's flag at the masthead, drifting into the gulf of perdition. The New York Herald was full of wild and inflammatory words. Papers of a different character—like the Boston Courier, representative of the party which included Everett and Winthrop—habitually charged the Republican party with John Brownism ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... everyone making way before our furious charge. Alas! we were too late. As we drew rein on the quay we saw, half a mile out to sea and sailing before a stiff breeze, Johnny Carr's little yacht, with the Aureataland flag floating defiantly at her masthead. ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... mounted fourteen guns, and was commanded by Captain Weatherall, a very noted privateer's-man. One morning at daybreak we discovered a vessel from the masthead, and immediately made all sail in chase, crowding every stitch of canvas. As we neared, we made her out to be a large ship, deeply laden, and we imagined that she would be an easy prize, but as we saw her hull more out of the water she proved to be well armed, ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... nations. England and France and the other powerful governments of Europe have at various times tried to conquer this Oriental exclusiveness, but the Portuguese only partly succeeded, while all the rest have signally failed. At length we, bearing at our masthead the glorious old Stars and Stripes, approach the mysterious portals and seek an entrance. Not with cannon and the implements of death do we demand admission, but, appreciating the saying of ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... board his yacht 'The Water-Wain,' and this chap was in on it somehow. When everybody was tanked up, they got to doing stunts and he bet a thousand with Wessington he could swarm up the backstay to the masthead. Two others wished in for a thousand apiece, and he cleaned up the lot. It cut his hands up pretty bad, but that was cheap at three thousand. Afterwards it turned out that he'd been practicing that very climb in heavy gloves, down in South Brooklyn. So I wrote the story. He ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... kept on from the south. Early in the morning of the 15th the Spray was close aboard the stranger, which proved to be La Vaguisa of Vigo, twenty-three days from Philadelphia, bound for Vigo. A lookout from his masthead had spied the Spray the evening before. The captain, when I came near enough, threw a line to me and sent a bottle of wine across slung by the neck, and very good wine it was. He also sent his card, which bore the name of Juan Gantes. ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... more of it. I therefore took the ship's telescope out of the beckets where it hung in the companion, and, slinging it over my shoulder, made my way up to the royal yard, where I seated myself comfortably and, steadying the tube of the instrument against the masthead, brought it to bear upon the land to windward. From my elevated position this now showed as a steep cone of moderate height rising from one extremity of a long range of lofty hills running away in a south-easterly direction until they sank below ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... way! Charley left them to return to his old place at the rail. The ship had slowed to half speed, and was already picking her way cautiously into the tickle, where the cliffs, nearly as high as the masthead, were so close on either side that Charley believed he might have touched ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... but here and there diversified by projections, called hummocks, which arise from the ice having been thrown up by some pressure or force to which it has been subject. Sheets of ice, which are so large that their whole extent of surface cannot be seen from the masthead of a vessel, are called fields. They have sometimes an area of more than a hundred square miles, and rise above the level of the sea from two to eight feet. When a piece of ice, though of a considerable size, can be distinguished in its extent, it is termed a floe. A number of ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... reliance upon the ethics of quotation books generally, but when I remember my own young days, and the things I did to discredit the other fellow in that little affair which has brought so much happiness into my own life, I am inclined to nail my flag to the masthead in defence of the principle that lovers can do no wrong. It is no ordinary stake that a lover plays for, and if he stacks the cards, and in other ways turns his back upon the guiding principles of his life, blameworthy ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... on Lake Erie. They were built of green timber cut for the purpose. They were poor vessels, but were as good as the British vessels. In September, 1813, Perry sailed in search of the British ships. Coming up with them, he hoisted at his masthead a large blue flag with Lawrence's immortal words, "Don't give up the ship" (p. 212), worked upon it. The battle was fiercely fought. Soon Perry's flagship, the Lawrence, was disabled and only nine of her crew ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... of Scotland, woven in silk, fluttered at his bark's masthead. In his ship's waist, toiling at the heavy oars, were two score of well-trained retainers, with a reserve of yet another two score and ten of his sturdy islanders ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... might write a volume about that mainsail, showing how its rigid, slanting beauty and its tremendous power were gradually attained by evolution from the ugly square lump of matting which swung from the masthead of Mediterranean craft. But we must not philosophise; we must enjoy. The fresh morning breeze runs merrily over the ripples and plucks off their crests; our vessel leans prettily, and you hear a tinkling hiss as ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... them, which told them that the search below had been thorough, and that the enemy were convinced that they had gone up the river instead of down, and the pursuit was now being carried on in that direction. A bright light was seen from the masthead of a ship below them, this being meant as a signal to those above. As they went on, they saw a light flash from the masthead of a vessel ...
— The Liberty Boys Running the Blockade - or, Getting Out of New York • Harry Moore
... consecutive thought. This is one reason why so many more Auto-Comrades are to be found in crow's-nests, gypsy-vans, and shirt-waist factories than on upper Fifth Avenue. For, watching the stars and the sea from a swaying masthead, taking light-heartedly to the open road, or even operating a rather unwholesome sewing-machine all day in silence, is better for consecutiveness of mind than a never-ending round of offices, clubs, committees, servants, dinners, teas, ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... wheel Drislane said nothing, but every moment the compass could spare his eyes saw them roaming across to where the Orion, like ourselves, was plugging through the short green seas for home. When his watch was done he borrowed my glasses, climbed by painful relays to the masthead and trained them on the Orion. After he came down and had gone below, I went aloft and spent the rest of the morning trying to see what it was that Drislane may have seen on the deck ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... together the bows of the ship were not visible. Masthead and sidelights were obscured by the pelting scud. The engines thrust the vessel forward like a lance into the vitals of the storm. Wind and wave gushed out of the vortex with ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... passage there was, between this land and New Guinea. At noon, our latitude, by observation, was 13 deg. 2' S., longitude 216 deg. W.; which was 1 deg. 23' W. of Lizard Island: At this time we had no land in sight; but a little before one o'clock, we saw high land from the masthead, bearing W.S.W. At two, we saw more land to the N.W. of that we had seen before: It appeared in hills, like islands; but we judged it to be a continuation of the main land. About three, we discovered breakers between the land and the ship, extending to the southward farther ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... didn't take that Swede long to see the error of his way and get the red and white pennant signifying "I understand" to the masthead. Once again the sails flapped idly, and then I ordered him to lower a boat and come after me. With Olson and a couple of the Englishmen I boarded the ship, and from her cargo selected what we needed—oil, provisions and water. I gave the master of the Balmen a receipt for ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... unbarred the ponderous gate, and ventured out on the highest slab of the landing-steps. Across the river, to be sure, there lay—between a local junk and a stray papico from the north—the high-nosed Hakka boat, her deck roofed with tawny basket-work, and at her masthead a wooden rice-measure dangling below a green rag. Aft, by the great steering-paddle, perched a man, motionless, yet seeming to watch. Heywood turned, however, and pointed downstream to where, at the bend of the river, a little ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... the flag-ship's masthead, and the decks were thronged with the brilliant uniforms of the regiment of Carignan-Salieres, whom the King had sent to destroy the enemies of New France. In the midst stood the stately Marquis, gorgeous in vice-regal robes and attended by a suite of nobles and ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... came sailing into the harbour, and from her masthead floated, not the fleur-de-lis, but the blood-red flag of England. This new-comer was Samuel Argall, a young English sea captain, a coarse, passionate, and daring man, who had been some time associated with the fortunes of Virginia. In the spring of 1613 he set sail in a ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... daylight, than to heave to; and allowance should be made for a probable current of one mile an hour to the north-west. A good lookout must be constantly kept; and a confidential officer should now go to the masthead every two hours in the day and to the fore yard at night, to listen as well as look; for in dark nights the breakers may often be heard before they can be seen. It will not be amiss, if the time of the ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... every timber and plank has been so fashioned as to contribute to the beauty and strength of the whole fabric, with a good seaman at the helm, the Constitution in the binnacle, and the stars and stripes at the masthead. When the time of my departure shall come, let me feel, let me know, that I leave those whom I love under the protection of a government good enough to secure the affection of its subjects, and strong enough to enforce their ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... their towns, villas, and vines, his eye turned toward the world of ships, each alive with its masses of living men. A glance of melancholy reproach was cast upon the little flag that was just waving at the mizzen-masthead of the Foudroyant; and then it fell on the carpet of faces beneath, that seemed fairly to change the surface of the smooth sea into an arena of human countenances. His look was steady, though his soul was in ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 'er binnacle lamps an' light 'er masthead light, Or scour 'er plankin' or scrape 'er seams when the days are sunny an' bright; No one to sit on the hatch an' yarn an' smoke when work is done, An' say, 'That gear wants reevin' new some ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... ship. Serigny commanded the Palmier, and there were three other frigates, the Profound, the Violent, the Wasp. Ice locked round the fleet at the west end of Hudson Straits, and fog lay so thick there was nothing visible of any ship but the masthead. For eighteen days they lay, crunched and rammed and separated by the ice drive, till on August 25, early in the morning, the fog suddenly lifted. Iberville saw that Serigny's ship had been carried back {185} in ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... cold, fatigue and danger, a vessel came in sight and crept slowly up, about two miles to windward of the distressed boat. With the heave of the waters they could see little more than her sails; but they ran up a bright bandanna handkerchief to their masthead; and the ship made them out. She hoisted Dutch ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... that way! Charley left them to return to his old place at the rail. The ship had slowed to half speed, and was already picking her way cautiously into the tickle, where the cliffs, nearly as high as the masthead, were so close on either side that Charley believed he might have touched ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... some places a channel not less than three miles in width. At two P.M., the wind suddenly shifting to the westward, closed up every open space in a few hours, leaving not a drop of water in sight from the masthead in that direction. To this, however, we had no objection; for being now certain that the ice was at liberty to move in the western part of the strait, we felt confident that, if once our present narrow barrier were also detached, the ordinary changes of wind ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... in our line; for, as if certain of what happened, we came down almost end-on upon their broadsides; yet did not the Dutch admiral fire a gun, or make the signal to engage, till the red flag was at the Fortitude's masthead, and her shot finding their way into his ship. This was a manoeuvre which Admiral Zutman should not be warmly thanked for by their High Mightinesses; as he had it in his power to have done infinite mischief to our fleet, coming down in that unofficer-like manner. Having suffered ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... fortnight after we had left Port Royal, the Torch was lying at anchor in Bluefields Bay. It was between eight and nine; the land—wind had died away, and the sea—breeze had not set in—there was not a breath stirring. The pennant from the masthead fell sluggishly down, and clung amongst the rigging like a dead snake, whilst the folds of the St George's ensign that hung from the mizzen—peak, were as motionless as if they had been ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... experience is thus related by Capt. Heasley, of Liverpool: "After passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, the second officer, who had charge of the deck, gave the order to 'port,' much to my astonishment, for the lights to be seen about a point on the starboard bow were a masthead and green light, but he maintained that it was a masthead and red, and not until both ships were nearly abreast would he acknowledge his mistake. I may add that during the rest of the voyage I never saw him making the same mistake. As a practical seaman I consider a ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... away up to the masthead, trembling at the thought of spending the night there, but ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... ha' been in all sorts o' company, pirates and all, sir; and I aint a bit frightened of a parson. No; I love a parson, sir. And I'll tell you for why, sir. He's got a good telescope, and he gits to the masthead, and he looks out. And he sings out, 'Land ahead!' or 'Breakers ahead!' and gives directions accordin'. Only I can't always make out what he says. But when he shuts up his spyglass, and comes down the riggin', and talks to us like one man to another, then ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... himself more clever and thoughtful than I was, he sprang into the shrouds, the Malay hardly noticing, evidently believing that the boy was going aloft to be safe. He looked up at him once, as Jack Penny settled himself at the masthead, but turned his attention fiercely towards us as the captain arranged his men as if for a rush, forming them into ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... and was killed by a bullet in his heart. The battle is depicted in bas-relief on the tomb, but the eye searches the marble in vain for any reminder of the broom which the admiral is said to have lashed to his masthead as a sign to the English that it was his habit to sweep their seas. The story may be a myth, but the Dutch sculptor who omitted to remember it and believe in it is no ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... was far better able to take care of himself than she was, she climbed to the top of the railing, and sat watching the strange ship. Suddenly she noticed that every stitch of canvas was being run up, and a moment later signal flags flew out at the masthead. In great excitement, she glanced down at the surging water below her, and sure enough the little boat was shooting into view, and rowing rapidly away towards the ship. In her efforts to discover what it all meant she almost forgot to look for Thomas in the boat, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... their places without a word and pulled out in the direction of the ship. In the pass, rising and falling in the heavy swell, they burned a blue light, which the Dauntless answered with another, and ran up a masthead lantern to guide them. A few minutes later they clambered up the ladder, the boat was hoisted in, and the boatswain's whistle was ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... topgallant mast was gone, several great patches in her sails also attracted attention; there too was a field-piece mounted and lashed on the quarter-deck as a stern-chaser. The fore royal was furled, and two flags were hanging limply from the masthead; the light breeze from time to time fluttering them a little, but not sufficiently to disclose what they were, until just opposite High Street, where she dropped her only remaining anchor, when a ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... But the enemy, the bad citizen, laughs at these things. He just thinks of himself. He thinks he has a right to do as he likes because this is, he says, "a free country." He doesn't think that he owes anything to Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln, or to those who kept the flag at the masthead when ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... a hitch in the halyards, and Dacre's excitement did not allow him to remove it quickly. The royal banner stopped on its way aloft—stopped at the half mast—and there ominously remained for a full half minute before the lines were cleared and it soared to the masthead. ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... the brow of royalty, is not "a sham," but a symbol which speaks more than words to every British heart; the standard that waves at the head of the regiment, nor the flag that floats at the ship's masthead is not "a sham," but a symbol that nerves the soldier and the sailor to duty and to victory. So the Bible is not "a sham," but a symbol of right and liberty dear to the heart of every Protestant freeman, to every lover of civil and religious liberty—a standard of truth and morals, the foundation ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... the sea-coast of New Holland is not much unlike that in the Gulph of Carpentaria, in the north part of the island, where, when Captain Flinders had reached the highest spot he could find in 175 leagues of coast,—this loftiest hill did not much exceed the height of the ship's masthead! And where the shores are not of this exceedingly level character, they are usually sterile, sandy, and broken, so as to offer rather an uninviting aspect to the stranger. It is obvious that, in either case, whether the coast be flat or barren, there may be ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... formed a glittering corsage for the ship's tapered stem, and merged into a witches' way of blackness beyond. The red signal of a distant gare, or station, or the white gleam of an approaching vessel's masthead light, shone from the void like low-pitched stars. Overhead the sky was of deepest blue, its stupendous arch studded with stars of extraordinary radiance, while low on the west could be seen the paler sheen ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... promptly ducked his head, and played out the line, as the boat dipped her masthead waterward, and came about on the other tack. When the sails were again drumming under the fingers of the ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... sailors, laid his seventy-four, the Centaur, close alongside the Diamond; made a hawser, with a traveller on it, fast to the ship and to the top of the rock; and in January 1804 got three long 24's and two 18's hauled up far above his masthead by sailors who, as they 'hung like clusters,' appeared 'like mice hauling a little sausage. Scarcely could we hear the Governor on the top directing them with his trumpet; the Centaur lying close under, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... minister sang; of the roars of laughter that went up from the lounging pirates when, sitting astride one of the main-deck guns, he made his voice call to them, now from the hold, now from the stern gallery, now from the masthead, now from the gilt sea maid upon the prow, I laugh too. Sometimes a space was cleared for him, and he played to them as to the pit at Blackfriars. They laughed and wept and swore with delight,—all save the Spaniard, who was ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... sails were hoisted at once, and she rowed out from the port. Having proceeded some three or four miles, they lowered her sails, and lay to in the course a galley making for the port would take. A sailor was sent up to the masthead to keep a lookout. Late in the afternoon he called down that he could make out a black speck some twelve miles away. She carried no sails, and he judged ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... were foggy days, and neither fleet could see the other. On June 1st there was a blue sky, a brilliant sun, a lively sea, and a wind that favoured the plans of the British Admiral. The signal for close action was flown from the masthead of the Queen Charlotte. Howe ordered his ships to sail on an oblique course down upon the French line, the two fleets having during the night lain in parallel lines stretching east and west. The intention was to break the French line near the ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... bumboat you ever saw—our steam schooner Gualala. She's a nautical disgrace and carries three hundred thousand feet of lumber—runs into the dogholes on the Mendocino Coast and takes in cargo on a trolley running from the top of the cliff to the masthead. It'll be your job to get out in a small boat to pick up the moorings; and that'll be no picnic in the wintertime, because you lie just outside the edge of the breakers. But you'll learn how to pick up moorings, Matt, and you'll ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... Darrel, "the soul in me is like a toy skiff, tossing in the ripples of a duck pond an' mayhap stranding on a reed or lily. An' then," he added, with kindling eye and voice, "she is a great ship, her sails league long an' high, her masthead raking the stars, her ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... hereabouts are exceedingly strong, and the soundings taken early in the morning proved that we were in unpleasantly shallow water—in fact, almost touching what we made out to be the edge of the Spermonde (?) Archipelago. Tom was at the masthead, endeavouring to pick up some landmark. At last he was able to distinguish the highest peak marked on the chart to the south of Macassar; whereupon he fearlessly gave the order to go full speed ahead in a NN.E. direction between that island ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... a pirate ship appeared. Reader, I do not know if you have ever seen a pirate ship. The sight was one to appal the stoutest heart. The entire ship was painted black, a black flag hung at the masthead, the sails were black, and on the deck people dressed all in black walked up and down arm-in-arm. The words "Pirate Ship" were painted in white letters on the bow. At the sight of it our crew were visibly cowed. It was a spectacle that would ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... became very anxious to obtain it. He had been the first to see the iceberg, why should he not be the first to see land? He was afraid, however, that his chance was small, as he had his duties in the gun-room to attend to, and he could seldom get away long enough at a time to go to the masthead. Still he determined to try. One thing struck him as very wonderful, that, after sailing on so many weeks, and not having once seen land, the officer should be able to tell the exact spot at which they should arrive, and the ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... Captain Saltonstall, who was to command the ship, had not yet arrived from Boston, and at Hancock's direction, Lieutenant Jones took command, and ran up the first American flag ever shown from the masthead of a man-of-war. It was not the Stars and Stripes, which had not yet been adopted as the flag of the United States, but a flag showing a rattlesnake coiled at the foot of a pine-tree, with the ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... after midnight you must put me on board ——-'s boat, she'll be abroad. They'll run a light to the masthead, for which you'll steer. You're a good hand at the helm in a dark night and a rough sea," was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... just considered, and especially from the last, dates the maritime supremacy of England. Since then her commerce, protected and advertised by the most powerful navy in the world, has mounted by leaps and bounds, so that now half the vessels which sail the seas bear at their masthead the Union Jack. From her dominions beyond the oceans and from her ships upon the seas Great Britain drew power and prestige; British merchants acquired opulence with resulting social and political importance ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... year's designs for toweling. The towel designs celebrating naval victories have been particularly successful: they are mostly in white, on a blue ground; or in black, on a white ground. One of the best—blue and white—represented only a flock of gulls wheeling about the masthead of a sunken iron-clad, and, far away, the silhouettes of Japanese battleships passing to the horizon.... What especially struck me in this, and in several other designs, was the original manner in which the Japanese artist had seized ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... over the side ready to lower, tubs for coiling away the ropes, harpoons, lances, &c., all were ready to throw in, and start away at a moment's notice. The man in the "crow's-nest", as they call the cask fixed up at the masthead, was looking anxiously out for whales, and the crew were idling about the deck. Tom Lokins was seated on the windlass smoking his pipe, and I was sitting beside him on an empty cask, sharpening ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... scarf of cloud; there, the inverted silhouettes of two fish-wives are conical shapes, their coifs and wet skirts startlingly distinct in tones; beyond, sails a fantastic fleet, with polychrome sails, each spar, masthead, and wrinkled sail as sharply outlined as if chiselled in relief. Presently these miniature pictures fade as the light fades. Blacker grows the mud, and there is less and less of it; the silhouetted shapes of the diggers are seen no more; they are following the carts ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... his dream by the announcement that two warlike frigates were sailing below the cliffs. He hurried to the bastion, which commanded the spot, to survey what might portend fresh struggles and more bloodshed. But soon a standard was run up to the masthead, unfolding to the breeze the flag of England. Immediately from the ramparts, where so recently had proudly floated the flag of France, an answering signal was shown, and, as the guns roared out a salute to the British colours, it was also ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... when she finally saw the doctor's machine at the door waiting for her in the grey dawn light; Jean cried, and Tammas and Andrew, who were coming in with the tide, seeing the trap crawling along, ran up a little flag on the masthead to cheer her going. But Aunt Janet did not cry. She kissed the girl unemotionally and went into the house, shutting the heavy door with a ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... end of his remarkable career, to come into the open on Amalgamated, he might never have been known as the real master of "Standard Oil." But if he is missing when the public is hurrahing, he is sufficiently in evidence when clouds lower or when the danger-signal is run to the masthead at 26 Broadway. He who reads "Standard Oil" history will note that, from its first deal until this day, whenever bricks, cabbages, or aged eggs were being presented to "Standard Oil," always were Henry H. Rogers' towering form and defiant eye to be seen in the foreground where ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... top of the rock there was a platform with sheer precipice on all sides. The Thirteen, reconnoitring the ground with their glasses from the masthead, made certain that though the ascent was steep and rough, there would be no difficulty in gaining the convent garden, where the trees were thick enough for a hiding-place. After such great efforts they would not risk the success of their enterprise, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... richly gilded, and from the variety of the costumes and streamers, I thought it one of the most beautiful sights I ever beheld. Here were the bankers' barge, the jewellers', the mercers', the tailors', the shoe-makers', and, to crown all, the printers' barge, which showered down from the masthead sonnets in honor of the fete, printed on board of the barge itself. Every trade or profession, in short, had a barge and appropriate flag and costumes. A quantity of private barges and gondolas followed this procession. The Archduke and his staff occupied the Government barge, which ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... guns, and was commanded by Captain Weatherall, a very noted privateer's-man. One morning at daybreak we discovered a vessel from the masthead, and immediately made all sail in chase, crowding every stitch of canvas. As we neared, we made her out to be a large ship, deeply laden, and we imagined that she would be an easy prize, but as we saw her hull more out of the water she proved to ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... wireless operator, bent closer over his instrument, and the blue fires flashed from the masthead of the steamer, cutting their way through the darkness into the black spaces beyond. The little room was lit by a dull oil light, the door was fast-closed and locked. Away into the night ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... come by and I was mighty and strong) wherefore I struggled no more, but suffered them to strike off my broken fetters and bind me to the whipping-post as they listed. Yet scarce had they made an end when there comes a loud hail from the masthead, whereupon was sudden mighty to-do of men running hither and yon, laughing and shouting one to another, some buckling on armour as they ran, some casting loose the great ordnance, while eyes turned and hands ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... red. They rose and fell in unison, now and then disappearing for a few seconds, then rising, high in the air, as it appeared. The two lights were the side lights of a boat, red on the port and green on the starboard, and above them was a single white light at the masthead. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... perplexed him, but Bradley had a mind open to suggestion, and capable of seeing, in the smallest fact, a picture of the largest. He was one day upon the Thames in a boat, and noticed that as long as his course remained unchanged, the vane upon his masthead showed the wind to be blowing constantly in the same direction, but that the wind appeared to vary with every change in the direction of his boat. 'Here,' as Whewell says, 'was the image of his case. The boat was the earth, moving in ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... up against the northerly winds came a third fleet with the gold and red of Spain fluttering from its masthead. This, too, was carrying its King westward, where now, indeed, the star of empire ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... was in the position desired, Ned crossed the arm of land lying between the stream and the beach and looked out with his glass. The Miles passed while he stood there, the American flag flying from her masthead. When he went back to the Manhattan there was a troubled ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Commodore Porter. While negotiations were progressing on board the 'Harriet Lane,' between our own and the confederate officers, (that vessel, and the Westfield, Clifton, Jackson, and Owasco, were at anchor between the two forts, each carrying a large white flag at the masthead,) the leaders of the enemy's marine forces set fire to the iron-clad battery Louisiana, cast her loose, and sent her adrift straight for our fleet. This dishonorable act on the part of the enemy during a time of truce, and while their own officers were in consultation with the commander ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... years ago, when it was known that the Tidemand firm had suffered heavy losses in a fish exportation. The yacht lay anchored just outside the Henriksen warehouse and attracted much attention because of its beautiful lines. The masthead was gilded. ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... the black flag suddenly fluttered from every masthead of the Sea Devil, and a bullet, hissing between the Royal Fortune's sails was the challenge to speak. The deepest silence reigned on Barthelemy's ship. The Sea Devil sailed close up to it, the Dutch consort remaining a little ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... last declivity cautiously, for his horse's sake. The trail came out of the hills abruptly, dropping into the rock-strewn river valley within hailing distance of the camp. Well within the sweep of the masthead lights across the stream, the boulder-strewn flat was as light as day, save where the sentinel rocks flung their shadows; and promptly at the first facing of the bright electrics, Ford's horse stumbled aside from the path and began to take short cuts between the thick-standing boulders ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... passing the small woody isle that was seen by Captain Flinders, and farther on we discovered two other isles of a similar character: they were seen from the masthead to the north-east; and a fourth was seen by the Dick. After this we had a few days of fine weather, which, as dysentery had already made its appearance amongst us, was most welcome, and tended materially to check the progress of so alarming ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... the only thing to steer; the only thing to be conceived as steering. He may make the birds his friends, if he can. He may make the fishes his gods, if he chooses. But most certainly he will not believe a bird at the masthead; and it is hardly likely that he will even permit a fish at the helm. He is, as Swinburne says, helmsman and chief: he is literally ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... through the Lido port, and moved toward its mooring-place at a group of rose-tinged piles. In just such a boat Columbus must have sailed when he was a boy. The rounded prow was decorated with a flying goddess blowing a trumpet; on the masthead there was perched a weathercock and a little figure of a hump-backed man, like the one hidden away in St. Mark's. A great sail, painted deep red, caught the sea-breeze and carried the boat slowly over the shimmering, ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... least, had gained the deck, but the prompt use of a revolver had caused them to retreat as silently and speedily as they had appeared. That was all. There was no actual fight. The phantoms vanished as silently as they came. The only external lights on the ship were the masthead and sidelights, hoisted by Courtenay to reveal the steamer's whereabouts in case one of the boats chanced to be driven into the bay during the dark hours. There was an electric lamp turned on in the donkey-engine room, and another ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... strictly for local navigation. Now suppose one of them was in the attic with glasses, waiting for the ships. Tom Tyler comes over the horizon first, Brad Marbek right behind him. Brad makes a signal. Maybe he blinks his masthead light. By that, they know the next ships are pretty far behind and Tom Tyler is in front. The man in the attic signals. They turn off Smugglers' Light from the junction box in front of the hotel and light up their own light on the crossbeam of the old ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... Albert for flour, or tea, or sugar. The last time they sailed together the barometer was low, and a gale was brewing. When they left the wharf they had taken on board all the stores they required, and more; they were happy and glorious. Next day the masthead of their boat was seen sticking out of the water near Sunday Island. The pilot schooner went down and hauled the boat to the surface, but nothing was found in her except the sand-ballast and a bottle of rum. Her sheet was made fast, and when the squall struck her she had gone down like ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... standing to their arms, and loaded our upper and quarter-deck guns with grape-shot; and, that we might the more readily procure some intelligence of the state of these islands, we showed Spanish colours, and hoisted a red flag at the fore-top-masthead, to give our ship the appearance of the Manilla galleon, hoping thereby to decoy some of the inhabitants on board us. Thus preparing ourselves, and standing towards the land, we were near enough, at three in the afternoon, to send the cutter in shore, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... permission for the vessel to proceed, in token of which a red-and-white flag with a black eagle on it was hoisted to the masthead. Then, after thus officially certifying that the ship from the Levant was quite free of infection, the inspector, without any previous ordeal by water, pressed the captain's hand and said to him: "You come from Komorn? Then you know Herr Katschuka, chief of the commissariat department? Be ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... seaward,—not more bravely, not more truly, but a directer course. He will pilot her past the breakers and the quicksands. He will bring her to the haven where she would be. O brave little bark! Is it Love that watches at the masthead? Is it Wisdom that stands at the helm? Is it Strength that ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... fresh outside. Ralph walked from St. Leonard's Gate by a back lane to the Dam Side. The river as well as the old town was illuminated. Every boat bore lamps to the masthead. Lamps, too, of many colors, hung downwards from the bridge, and were reflected in their completed circle ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... complied with this request, and waddling aft took the tiller, his more active companion sprang into the main rigging and ran rapidly to the masthead, from which point of vantage he gazed back for a full minute over ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... reasonably be supposed that among the number of thirty, there must be timid as well as bold; the timid he never rebuked, but always wished to show them he desired nothing of them that he would not instantly do himself: and I have known him say, 'Well, Sir, I am going a race to the masthead, and beg I may meet you there.' No denial could be given to such a wish, and the poor fellow instantly began his march. His Lordship never took the least notice with what alacrity it was done, but when he met in the top, instantly began speaking in the most cheerful manner, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... swoops down and the ship heels over to it he yells again, 'Let go your royal halliards, clew 'em up and make 'em fast!' Down come the yards, with hoarse roaring from the thrashing canvas. But then, if no second squall is coming, the mate will cut the clewing short with a stentorian 'Masthead the yards again!' on which the watch lay on to the halliards and haul—Ahay! Aheigh! Aho—oh! Up ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... us away, blessed Saviour! O my friends! a little vinegar. I sweat again with mere agony. Alas! the mizen-sail's split, the gallery's washed away, the masts are sprung, the maintop-masthead dives into the sea; the keel is up to the sun; our shrouds are almost all broke, and blown away. Alas! alas! where is our main course? Al is verlooren, by Godt! our topmast is run adrift. Alas! who shall have this wreck? Friend, lend me here behind you one ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... productive of no immediate good. There was no breeze, and, as the Sarah Jane was on the shallow banks, far out of the route of the steamers, there was nothing to do but to cultivate patience and wait. At Frank's urging, Peleg set a signal from the masthead, but it drew no ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... struck the steel of her quality. She would be his prisoner because she must, but the "no compromise" flag was nailed to her masthead. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... quite a different thing from furling a royal in a light breeze. When I had got to the topgallant masthead, the yard was well down by the lifts and steadied by the braces, but the clews were not hauled chock up to the blocks. Leaning out precariously, I won Mr. Thomas's attention with greatest difficulty, and shrieked ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... over to windward as she sailed, and when the two ships were almost within cannon range, Stede Bonnet with his own hand bent the "Jolly Roger" to the lanyard and sent the great black flag with its skull and crossbones to fly from the masthead. The grog was served out. No man would have believed that the roaring, rollicking gang of cutthroats who tossed off their liquor in cheers and ribald laughter was identical with the grumbling, sour-faced crew of twenty hours before. As they finished, something came skipping ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... all the might of her soul awakening slowly from a poisoned sleep, in which it could only quiver with pain but could neither expand nor move. He plunged into them breathless and tense, deep, deep, like a mad sailor taking a desperate dive from the masthead into the blue unfathomable sea so many men have execrated and loved at the same time. And his vanity was immense. It had been touched to the quick by that muscular little feminist, Fyne. "I! I! Take advantage of her helplessness. I! Unfair to that creature—that wisp of mist, that ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... Wright: "For your instruction in the ways of the world, I send you Susan's letter. You see I am between two fires all the time. Some are determined to throw me overboard, and she is equally determined that I shall stand at the masthead, no matter ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the apex was the lower corner of the triangular sail, which could be hauled over to either side of the ship, one end of the yard being hauled down on the other side. The sail thus lay at an angle with the line of the keel, with one point of the yard high above the masthead, and by carrying the sheet tackle of the point of the sail across the ship, and reversing the position of the yard, the galley was put on one tack or the other. Forward, pointing ahead, was a battery of two or more guns, and there was sometimes a second ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... lull on October 24, I went to the masthead with the field-glasses but saw nothing of the party. On that day we weighed out provisions and made ready to go in search of them. It was my intention to go on the outward track for a week. I wrote instructions to Jones to hoist a large flag on the mast, and to burn flares each night at ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... long week now since the sight of an enemy had gladdened the eyes of the Sumter's little crew, when, on the 25th of September, the welcome cry of "Sail, ho!" was once more heard from the masthead. Steam was at once got up, and the United States colors displayed from the Confederate cruiser. A short pause of expectation, an eager scrutiny of the stranger, as the blue and red bunting fluttered for a few moments upon his deck, while his men were busy with the signal halyards, ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... famous booze parties on board his yacht 'The Water-Wain,' and this chap was in on it somehow. When everybody was tanked up, they got to doing stunts and he bet a thousand with Wessington he could swarm up the backstay to the masthead. Two others wished in for a thousand apiece, and he cleaned up the lot. It cut his hands up pretty bad, but that was cheap at three thousand. Afterwards it turned out that he'd been practicing that very climb in heavy gloves, down in South Brooklyn. So I wrote the story. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... disgusting and ridiculous trait. A man who should try to lie down and go to sleep in the heart of the sea or on the masthead of a ship would be a manifest fool, and would not keep life in him for long. One has seen drunken men laying themselves down to sleep in places as exposed and as ridiculous as these; and one knows the look of the heavy lump of insensibility ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... then proceeded: "And after this they took me to the quay, and presently I espied among the masts one garlanded with amaranth flowers. 'Take me thither,' said I, and I let my guide know the custom of our Dutch skippers to hoist flowers to the masthead when they are courting a maid. Oft had I scoffed at this saying, 'So then his wooing is the earth's concern. But now, so far from the Rotter, that bunch at a masthead made my heart leap with assurance of a countryman. They carried me, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... minutes after seven o'clock when she arrived at the entrance to Ambrose Channel. She was coming fast steaming at better than fifteen knots an hour, and she was sighted long before she was expected. Except for the usual side and masthead lights she was almost dark, only the upper cabins showing a glimmer ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... over their nets, still riding to the Blackbird's stern. Then they moved off in the dark. MacRae could hear nets paying out. He saw lanterns set to mark the outer end of each net. Silence fell on the bay. A single riding light glowed at the No. 5's masthead. Her cabin lights blinked out. Her crew sprawled in their ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... sky lightened, the mist melted away, and then a long, low, far-off streak of pale yellow light floated on the eastern horizon. By and by the water sparkled, and the sea changed colour, turning from black to yellow, and from yellow to lucid green. The man at the masthead hailed the deck. The boats were in sight, and as they came towards the ship, the bright water flashing from the labouring oars, a crowd of spectators hanging over the bulwarks cheered and ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... compass and watched his course. Due east, not a degree to north or south of it, straight as a bee to its hive. The ship was now far out of sight astern, but I knew that keen eyes had been watching our movements from the masthead, and that every effort possible would be made to keep the run of us. The speed of our whale was not only great, but unflagging. He was more like a machine than an animal capable of tiring; and though we did our level best, at the faintest symptom of slackening, to get ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... the shore batteries. Rather than have his ship blown to bits, Bainbridge swallowed his wrath and submitted. On the eve of departure, he had to submit to another indignity. The colors of Algiers must fly at the masthead. Again Bainbridge remonstrated and again the Dey looked casually at his guns trained on the frigate. So off the frigate sailed with the Dey's flag fluttering from her masthead, and ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... up, and throw out the sail! Run the red flag of revolution to the masthead of our frail craft, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... court-poets have lovingly described a ship with gold-broidered sails, gilt masts, and red-dyed rigging. One of his ships has, like the ships in the Chansons de Geste, a carbuncle for a lantern at the masthead. Hedin signals to Frode by a shield at the masthead. A red shield was a peace signal, as noted above. The practice of "strand-hewing", a great feature in Wicking-life (which, so far as the victualling of raw meat by the fishing fleets, and its use raw, as Mr. P. H. Emerson ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... thought she had said this just because it sounded well, but on turning his head he saw for himself a small boat heading toward them as fast as it could come. A moment more and the children could see the black flag floating at its masthead. ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... came and looked at me. Through the door I could see the hills and the harbour beyond the high stern, and on that Thorgils was steering, with his eyes on the vane at the masthead. His men were coiling down ropes, and Evan's two men were sitting under the weather gunwale aft, talking with the guards of the princess. She was in the after cabin, I suppose, out of the way of the wind, with her maidens. I ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... the stately ships moved slowly down the broad river. As they drew away from the canoes in which, with heavy hearts and sad faces, the motionless Indians watched the receding form of their beloved young chief, of a sudden the banners of France were flung to the breeze from each masthead, and a tremendous roar of artillery gave voice to his ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... between the latter and Driftwood Island, a proceeding which the approach of high-water rendered necessary, as from the great fall of the tide we were obliged at that time to have at least seven fathoms. We were now surrounded on all sides by flat shores, and from the masthead, I could trace the low land forming the western side of the principal channel. The high land south of McAdam Range, was found to terminate in a remarkable peak, which in the certainty of our search proving successful, we named River Peak. It was almost blended in one with a range ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... well as each of the five subsequent paintings, depicts an important event in the history of our navy, and must be dear to every American heart in the incident which is thus perpetuated. The American flag is proudly displayed from the masthead and stern of the "Ranger," and the coloring is so adjusted that the flag appears to wave in the brightest light of the picture. The smoke of the booming cannon from the French fleet, the motion of the water, and the row-boats evidently ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... in all the world, and the most welcome to set eyes on. Rounding the Cape, he directed his course for Sierra Leone and the Coast of Guinea, and, coming into waters that he knew, he continued northward until the shores of England were sighted from his masthead. And at last he dropped anchor triumphantly in Plymouth harbor after a voyage that had ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... Only the roar of the wind and waves would remind them of their native forests which they would never see again. When the masts were swung into place, they were made fast with shrouds and stays; and finally a flag of red, white, and blue was unfurled at the masthead and displayed its stars and stripes to ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... sailed the Essex to join the sister-vessels of her fleet, with a pennant flying from her masthead, on which were the words, "Free trade, and sailors' rights," for both of which, Captain Porter was ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... sea in squalls, like the firing of a battery of cannon; now and then there was a flaw of rain, and the surf rolled heavier with the rising tide. I was down at my observatory among the elders, when a light was run up to the masthead of the schooner, and showed she was closer in than when I had last seen her by the dying daylight. I concluded that this must be a signal to Northmour's associates on shore; and, stepping forth into the links, looked around ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little,' returned Carker. 'Upon the whole we have not had our usual good fortune of late, but that is of little moment to you. At Lloyd's, they give up the Son and Heir for lost. Well, she was insured, from her keel to her masthead.' ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... imitated him, and we galloped as hard as we could, everyone making way before our furious charge. Alas! we were too late. As we drew rein on the quay we saw, half a mile out to sea and sailing before a stiff breeze, Johnny Carr's little yacht, with the Aureataland flag floating defiantly at her masthead. ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... streaked with snow, where it has come to rest in narrow flutings and gorges. Mark, too, how grandly the banners wave as the wind is deflected against their sides, and how trimly each is attached to the very summit of its peak, like a streamer at a masthead; how smooth and silky they are in texture, and how finely their fading fringes are penciled on the azure sky. See how dense and opaque they are at the point of attachment, and how filmy and translucent toward the end, so that the peaks ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... nosegay, and the Highlander, with his big watch dangling in the water over the side of the umbrella; and last, there was the little Chinese mandarin clinging convulsively to the top of the handle as if he were keeping a lookout from the masthead. ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... At the masthead: a blue pendant with the Union in canton and the Customs badge of office (a castellated structure with portcullis over the entrance, and two barred windows and two port-holes, one barred and one open, the latter ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... smoke a silent pipe by way of promoting social conviviality, and invariably drink a mug of cider to the success of Admiral Van Tromp, whom they imagine is still sweeping the British Channel with a broom at his masthead. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... sailor in the port. There were men, indeed, in blue jackets and trousers, but not of the true nautical fashion, such as dangle before slopshops; others wore tight pantaloons and coats preponderously long-tailed,—cutting very queer figures at the masthead; and, in short, these fresh-water fellows had about the same analogy to the real "old salt" with his tarpaulin, pea-jacket, and sailor-cloth trousers, as a lake fish ...
— Sketches From Memory - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was created lieutenant-admiral, and in two years' time had twice scattered Spanish fleets; defeated by Blake in 1652, but six months later beat back the English fleet in the Strait of Dover, after which he is said to have sailed down the Channel with a broom to his masthead as a sign he had swept his enemies from the seas; in 1653 Blake renewed the attack and inflicted defeat on him after a three days' struggle; in June and July Tromp was again defeated by the English, and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... order, but on arrival at Corfu were ordered into quarantine, because six months before cholera had made a brief appearance at Ancona. Our consul, Mr. Woodley, came off to the steamer to see me, for the American flag was flying from the masthead, as is customary in the Levant when a consul is on board, and he proposed to hire a little yacht for us to make the quarantine in, as otherwise we should have to go to a desert island at the head of the bay, where the only shelter was an ancient and dilapidated lazaretto overrun ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... At one of the latter the owner, an Argentine of Irish parentage, who still spoke English with the accent of the land of his parents' nativity, remarked that this was the first time the American flag had been seen on the upper Paraguay; for our gunboat carried it at the masthead. Early in the afternoon, having reached the part where both banks of the river were Brazilian territory, we came to the old colonial Portuguese fort of Coimbra. It stands where two steep hills rise, one on either side of the river, and it guards the water-gorge ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... twin brethren [Footnote: The Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, who were supposed to appear to sailors in distress.] so indispensable to nautical story, or of some other deus ex machina, who, seated at the masthead or standing at the helm, guides the vessel to some sandy shore, there to break up at her leisure—not before her crew (so benevolent is the God!) have effected a safe landing. The mariner, however, is liberal in embellishment, being ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... signal-lights had flashed out for a moment directly ahead of the Speedy, and then disappeared. The strangest thing about them was that they had been shown just above the surface of the water, instead of from a masthead, as would usually be the case on a war-ship. The Speedy had been slipping quietly along, showing her regular side lights, which, as she was of low freeboard, must also have appeared close to the water from a short distance, and might have been mistaken for a signal. Now ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... wind at north-west by north, but then pretty fresh; and we saw the clouds rising more and thicker in the north-west. This night at 12 we lay by for a small low sandy island which I reckoned myself not far from. The next morning at sun-rising we saw it from the top-masthead, right ahead of us; and at noon were up within a mile of it: when by a good observation I found it to lie in 13 degrees 55 minutes. I have mentioned it in my first volume, but my account then made it to lie in 13 degrees 50 minutes. We ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... stock of water, and disputed which had the right first to fill their casks. In the fray, a Norman was killed, and his shipmates, escaping, took their revenge by boarding another English vessel, and hanging a poor, innocent Bayonne merchant from the masthead, with a dog fastened to his feet. Retaliation followed upon revenge; and while the two kings professed to be at peace, every ship from their ports went armed, and fierce struggles took place wherever there was an encounter. Slaughter and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... rank of range upon range of hills, reaching north and south as far as the eye could see from the masthead, was rising above our horizon behind a very surfeit of islands, bewildering the minds of men accustomed to our English and ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... sea, and more than once his ship was subjected to indignity and outrage incident to seafaring of that period. But throughout a long career as master of a merchantman the Stars and Stripes was never lowered from the masthead nor sullied ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... settled weather. At 2 p.m. saw land* (* The North island of New Zealand.) from the Masthead bearing West by North, which we stood directly for, and could but just see it of the Deck at sunset. Variation per Azimuth and Amplitude 15 degrees 4 1/2 minutes East; by observation of the Sun and Moon made this afternoon the Longitude of the Ship is 180 degrees 55 minutes ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... a very large collection of historical caricatures of all nations, and among them all there is hardly one more spirited and comical than that which represents Sir Charles at the masthead of one of his frigates, seeking, through a spy-glass, to get a sight at the domes and spires of St. Petersburg: not even the best efforts of Gillray or "H. B.,'' or Gavarni or Daumier, or the brightest things in "Punch'' or ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... time to fire a gun, for a pilot; and almost before its smoke had cleared away, a little boat with a light at her masthead came bearing down upon us, through the darkness, swiftly. And presently, our sails being backed, she ran alongside; and the hoarse pilot, wrapped and muffled in pea-coats and shawls to the very bridge of his weather-ploughed-up nose, stood bodily among us on the deck. ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... was with the utmost difficulty that the canoes were kept from turning their broadsides to the waves, though we sometimes steered with all the paddles. One of them narrowly escaped being overset by this accident, which occurred in a mid-channel where the waves were so high that the masthead of our canoe was often hid from the other, though ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... nearly breathless. Her small voice grew sharp and shrill, like the cry of a sea-bird from the masthead. Meanwhile Paul, amused at first, had begun to listen impatiently, with his thoughts elsewhere. 'I am off,' said he abruptly. 'I have a breakfast with some business ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... an island and you begin at once to understand the legends of enchantment which ages have collected around such spots. Climb to its heights, you seem at the masthead of some lonely vessel, kept forever at sea. You feel as if no one but yourself had ever landed there; and yet, perhaps, even there, looking straight downward, you see below you in some crevice of the rock ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... all the energy of his youth and his eyes sparkling with pride and patriotic fire, grasped the rope (but the halyards were stiffened) and after an adjustment of the difficulty the flag soon reached the masthead and was spread out to the breeze. Then occurred a scene not often witnessed. The people went wild at the beautiful sight. Hats and handkerchiefs went flying into the air. All reserve of these military men was forgotten in the moment of patriotic enthusiasm. The ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... captain,' replied the wretch, 'and put his head at the main topgallant masthead—and we will put the first-mate's head at the mizzen, and the boatswain's at the fore. The other convicts who are not with us in the matter we shall put on shore at some island, and leave them to shift for themselves, they are worth nothing. The ship is a good prize, ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... Daughter. Astonishing establishment, amazing enigma! Three other shops were pretty much out of the season, what they were used to be in it. First, the shop where they sell the sailors' watches, which had still the old collection of enormous timekeepers, apparently designed to break a fall from the masthead: with places to wind them up, like fire-plugs. Secondly, the shop where they sell the sailors' clothing, which displayed the old sou'-westers, and the old oily suits, and the old pea-jackets, and the old one sea-chest, with its handles like a pair of rope ear-rings. Thirdly, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... Investigator was kept all day so close along shore that the breaking water was visible from the deck, and no river mouth or inlet could escape notice. When the weather was too rough to enable this to be done with safety, Flinders stationed himself at the masthead, scanning every reach of the shore-line. "Before retiring to rest," he wrote, "I made it a practice to finish the rough chart for the day, as also my astronomical observations and bearings." When darkness fell, the ship hauled ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... palm-crowned bluffs of rock. Just outside, a ship was heaving on the surge, so trimly sparred, so glossily painted, so elegant and point-device in every feature, that my heart was seized with admiration. The English colours blew from her masthead; and, from my high station, I caught glimpses of her snowy planking, as she rolled on the uneven deep, and saw the sun glitter on the brass of her deck furniture. There, then, was my ship of refuge; and of all my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for the moment that Harwood's decision might be struck on this note of mirth. Dan wondered whether, in permitting Bassett thus to disclose his plans and purposes, he had not already nailed his flag to the Bassett masthead. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... two republics of England and Holland; Blake, commanding the English fleet, defeats De Witt and De Ruyter; he is in turn surprised by Van Tromp, who captures six English ships, drives the others up the Thames, and sails the Channel with a broom at the masthead. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... Drayton, we might as well get under way;" and at half-past six the monitors stood down to their stations, while the column of wooden ships was formed, all with the United States flag hoisted, not only at the peak, but also at every masthead. The four monitors, trusting in their iron sides, steamed in between the wooden ships and the fort. Every man in every craft was thrilling with the fierce excitement of battle; but in the minds of most there ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... way, and flattered ourselves with the hope of clearing the strait before night. In this hope we were not deceived; but before it was effected, we had very nearly suffered from the careless look-out of the man at the masthead. At four o'clock we were near Three Hummock Island, and steered so as to pass close to its northern point, in order that we might obtain a correct latitude for sights for the chronometers. Being within half a mile of ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... out from England a black column of smoke was seen to port, and presently the contour of a heavy battleship could be determined bearing down on us. There was wild excitement till the Cross of St. George could be distinguished at her masthead. It was the ill-fated Queen Mary, our latest and finest battle-cruiser. At an almost incredible speed she overtook us and passed up our lines with her crew manning the decks and her band playing "The ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... soul in me is like a toy skiff, tossing in the ripples of a duck pond an' mayhap stranding on a reed or lily. An' then," he added, with kindling eye and voice, "she is a great ship, her sails league long an' high, her masthead raking the stars, her hull in ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... fleet passing through the straits in search of the French fleet that had lately got out of Toulon. In less than a year Nelson's young admirer was one of the thousands that pressed to see the remains of the great admiral as they lay in state at Greenwich, wrapped in the flag that had floated at the masthead of the Victory. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
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