"Abaft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are not troubling themselves about this, or anything else in the ship. Lingering abaft the binnacle, with their hands resting on the taffrail, they look back at the land, their eyes fixed upon the summit of a hill, ere long to become lost to their view by the setting of the sun. They have been standing ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... artificial membrane, cast their shadow over many hundreds of square yards. The chairs for the engineer and his passenger hung free to swing by a complex tackle, within the protecting ribs of the frame and well abaft the middle. The passenger's chair was protected by a wind-guard and guarded about with metallic rods carrying air cushions. It could, if desired, be completely closed in, but Graham was anxious for novel experiences, and desired that it should be ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... been carefully helped up by Drew and Captain Hamilton and placed in a chair abaft the mizzenmast, where his keen old eyes could delight themselves with the activities of the crew. Ruth had fussed around him prettily with cushions and a rest for his injured leg, until the veteran vowed that he would surely be spoiled before ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... waves with the oars, while the other struggled with something—a bit of sail as big as a sack. Yes, yes, of course! Now if they took in the oars and left themselves at the mercy of the weather—with wind and waves abaft and beam!—they would fill with ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... abaft, the engine stopt, the vessel remained unwillingly stationary, until, after an hour's search, my poor Perdita was brought on board. But no care could re-animate her, no medicine cause her dear eyes ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... and one of them, a petty officer, stated that he had defended himself with the monkey tail of his gun. Whatever the cause, although there was fighting to prevent the "Chesapeake" from being lashed to the "Shannon", no combined resistance was offered abaft the mainmast. There the marines made a stand, but were overpowered and driven forward. The negro bugler of the ship, who should have echoed Lawrence's summons, was too frightened to sound a note, and the voices of the aids, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... space abaft the cabin, was eight feet long, with cushioned seats on three sides. Forward of the cabin there was a "stow-hold," four feet long, in which the fuel and furnaces used for cooking were kept. Under the cabin table, and under the berths and seats in the standing room, were a plenty of lockers for the ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... if you approached it from the starboard and slightly abaft the beam. From that angle, ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... a smooth Sea, all this 24 Hours, which in the P.M. gave us an Opportunity to carry out the 2 Bower Anchors, one on the Starboard Quarter, and the other right a Stern, got Blocks and Tackles upon the Cables, brought the falls in abaft and hove taught. By this time it was 5 o'Clock p.m.; the tide we observed now begun to rise, and the leak increased upon us, which obliged us to set the 3rd Pump to work, as we should have done the 4th also, but could ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... long gun with grape and canister, and wheel it abaft—load the larboard guns the same way. Now, my men, don't run too near her. She must ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... and required nine days to complete it. When the workmen had this morning completed the trench within ten or twelve feet of the stern, the ship suddenly disengaged herself from the ice, to which she had before been firmly adhering on the larboard side, and rose in the water about ten inches abaft, and nearly eighteen inches forward, with a considerable surge. This circumstance it was not difficult to explain. In the course of the winter, the strong eddy-winds about the ships had formed round them a drift of snow seven or ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... beam of twenty-five feet. Her enormous stretch of canvas, spread to the limit on all possible occasions by Captain Simms, was offset by the pendulum of lead that made up her keel, and she could slide through the seas at twelve knots on her best point of sailing—reaching—the wind abaft her beam. ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... are you?" she continued, as Hollister took her by the arm and led her toward a cabin abaft the wheelhouse on the boat deck, a roomy lounging place unoccupied save by a fat woman taking a midday nap in one corner, her double chin sunk on ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... invincible aspect of the peace, he felt he cared for nothing that could happen to him to the end of his days. From time to time he glanced idly at a chart pegged out with four drawing-pins on a low three-legged table abaft the steering-gear case. The sheet of paper portraying the depths of the sea presented a shiny surface under the light of a bull's-eye lamp lashed to a stanchion, a surface as level and smooth as the glimmering surface ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... was we soon ascertained to our heavy cost, for the shot that had been fired at us from a long 32—pound gun, took effect right abaft the foremast, and killed three men outright, and wounded two. Several other shots followed, but with less sure aim. Returning the fire was of no use, as our carronades could not have pitched their metal much more than halfway; ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the bar, it was almost low-water: the schooner drew eight feet abaft, and we had just nine feet soundings over the bank; we cleared all, however, after a minute of some anxiety, owing to there being a heavy northerly swell setting in, which appeared ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... can only disappoint us through our own incapacity to contain it. These delights of study and of solitude Wordsworth enjoyed to the full. In no other poet, perhaps, have the poet's heightened sensibilities been productive of a pleasure so unmixed with pain. The wind of his emotions blew right abaft; he "swam smoothly in the stream of his nature, and lived ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... first to second Captain Sawkins. She ran close in, "under Peralta's side," and poured in a blasting full volley through her after gun-ports. A scrap of blazing wad fell among the red-clay powder jars in the after magazine. Before she could fire a shot in answer, she blew up abaft. Ringrose from the canoa "saw his men blown up, that were abaft the mast, some of them falling on the deck, and others into the sea." But even this disaster did not daunt old Peralta. Like a gallant sea-captain, he slung a bowline round his ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... scorching heat one afternoon when the flood tide began to run, they hauled the hulk and tug abaft the wreck's engine-room and made the great ropes fast. If Lister's calculations were accurate, the pump had thrown out enough water, and the buoyancy of the other craft would lift the wreck's stern. If not—but he refused to ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... King and the Duke of York in the Duke of York's lodgings, with the rest of the Officers and many of the Commanders of the fleete, and some of our master shipwrights, to discourse the business of having the topmasts of ships made to lower abaft of the mainmast; a business I understand not, and so can give no good account; but I do see that by how much greater the Council, and the number of Counsellors is, the more confused the issue is ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Comanche, lowered one of the ship's boats on the starboard side, where it was sheltered from the sight of the enemy by the deck cabins just abaft the midships. In this boat were two rifles, heavily loaded and ready for action. What the boy's scheme was I did not foresee but it was to develop a ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... accident away, I saw the dim, provocative faces of girls in white jerseys and woolen caps peering from without through the dark double windows of the lounge. And I was glad when somebody suggested that it was time to take a turn. And outside, in the strong wind, abaft the four funnels of the Lusitania, a star seemed to be dancing capriciously around and about the masthead light. And it was difficult to believe that the masthead and its light, and ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... the hold, Sometimes upon the mast, Sometimes abeam, sometimes abaft, Or at the bows he sang and laughed, And made all ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... bowsprit. Another one must go. It was a clear case of holding back. I was near the mate, but sprang past several, threw the downhaul over the windlass, and jumped between the knight-heads out upon the bowsprit. The crew stood abaft the windlass and hauled the jib down, while John and I got out upon the weather side of the jib-boom, our feet on the foot-ropes, holding on by the spar, the great jib flying off to leeward and slatting so as almost to throw us off the boom. For some time we could do nothing ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... end of the promenade deck, which extended twenty feet abaft the smoking-room, and took the whole beam; above the latter, as in most modern ships, there was the boat deck, to the after-part of which passengers had access. Standing below, it was easy to see and talk with any one who looked over ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... long 9-pounders, with a full proportion of shot. This quantity of metal alone (for the carriages had been previously taken on board and fixed at Woolwich) brought the ship bodily down in the water four inches, drawing, when on board, 15 feet 2 inches forward, and 15 feet 6 inches abaft. We also received, on the day after, as much powder as could be put in the magazines. On Monday, the 9th, we left our moorings, and proceeded down the Thames, anchoring for the night. On the following day we arrived in the Downs, where we remained for about six-and-forty ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... for even the seconds were precious now, the hatch was battened down, and a hole large enough to admit of the nozzle of the hose, bored just abaft ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... and apparent course being relative to the way on the vessel, the hooker seemed to lie closer to the wind than she did in reality. The breeze was not a-beam, nor was the hooker close-hauled; but one cannot ascertain the true course made, except when the wind is abaft. When you perceive long streaks of clouds meeting in a point on the horizon, you may be sure that the wind is in that quarter; but this evening the wind was variable; the needle fluctuated; the captain distrusted the erratic movements ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... the beginning of it—all the romance and adventure was ahead of us. Before noon I was not sorry to be aboard of the bigger craft and looked with equanimity upon my own bonny sloop stowed amidships. The wind had wheeled again and coming abaft, the bark shot on into the southward, trying to outrun the gale. Had I not been picked up as I was I might have been swamped ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... to-day, isn't it, Don?" said Uncle. Don laughed. The uncle laughed, though not so cheerily as Don, and even Jack chuckled softly to himself to think that "all was well again abaft." ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... manner, the boat was easily manoeuvred to be within almost touching distance whensoever the head emerged. In quick succession three out of the four bullets the magazine contained penetrated its body just abaft the pectoral fins. A brief flurry followed each shot, and then the shark, with passive fixity of purpose, resumed the mangling of the ray, which with extended, backward strained eyes, seemed to implore rescue from its fate. Were any other means of ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... talk for the day before Christmas! Come away from books and trouble, out on deck, where there is a breeze. The mighty Norseman is ready to cut my hair, and is waiting abaft the engine-room ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... that, shortly after noon on a scorching summer day, we cast off our moorings and, leaving quarrel-torn Fiume abaft, turned the nose of the Sirio sou' by sou'-west, down the coast of Dalmatia. The sun-kissed waters of the Bay of Quarnero looked for all the world like a vast azure carpet strewn with a million sparkling diamonds; on our starboard quarter stretched the green-clad slopes ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... abaft," roared Osgood, from the deck of the schooner Bonita, which was tossing outside ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... ceremony, we took our little luggage to the steamer John W. Richmond, which, at that time, was one of the line running between New York and Newport, R. I. Forty-three years ago colored travelers were not permitted in the cabin, nor allowed abaft the paddle-wheels of a steam vessel. They were compelled, whatever the weather might be,—whether cold or hot, wet or dry,—to spend the night on deck. Unjust as this regulation was, it did not trouble us much; we had fared ...
— Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass • Frederick Douglass
... open levity. A few men were lounging about the heel of the bowsprit on the forecastle, one or two were busy in the waist coiling cable; an officer of second or third caste a quiet, but decided character, to judge from his features, stood with folded arms just abaft the mizzen-mast, and a youthful figure, almost too young seemingly for so responsible a post, leaned idly against the monkey-rail, near the sage old tar who was at the helm. At first you might have supposed him a supercargo, an owner's son ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... true enough. Just as the captain spoke, the object of the order was made sufficiently apparent, by all the light vessels to windward of the French fleet, bearing up together, until they brought the wind abaft their beams, when away they glided to leeward, like floating objects that have suddenly struck a swift current. Before this change in their course, these frigates and corvettes had been struggling along, the seas meeting them on their weather-bows, at the rate of ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... hurricane. With an oh, for the feel of the salt sea spray as it stipples the guffy's cheek! And oh, for the sob of the creaking mast and the halyard's aching squeak! And some may sing of the galley-foist, and some of the quadrireme, And some of the day the xebec came and hit us abaft the beam. Oh, some may sing of the girl in Kew that died for a sailor's love, And some may sing of the surging sea, as I ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... it on thick about wot he called Royson's own interests, but I knew better'n that. It don't suit his book for our dandy second mate to be sparkin' the owner's granddaughter abaft the lantern. You take my tip, Tagg, that other woman, Mrs. Haxton, is as mean as, sin, an' she blew the gaff to-night when she dropped ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... the great central gangway are the fore and stern cabins. They furnish something akin to tolerable accommodations for the officers and a favored fraction of the crew. Above the forecastle rises a carved proudly curing prow, and just abaft it are high bulwarks to guard the javelin men when at close quarters with the foe. There is also on either side of the prow a huge red or orange "eye" painted around the hawse holes for the anchors. Above the stern cabin is the narrow deck reserved for the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... witnessed by the father of the MacNicols, who had stood for a second or two as if paralysed. Then a sort of spasm of action seized him, and, apparently not knowing what he was about, he threw open the gangway abaft the paddle-box and sprang into ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record. For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... your helm, Sylvanus," growled the captain; "there's three pair of eyes here as good as yourn, and I hope with more sense abaft 'em." ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... staunchion remaining here and there to show where they had been. She had, like ourselves, a short topgallant forecastle, under which the windlass was housed, and this structure remained intact; but a deck-house abaft the foremast, and between it and the main hatch, had been swept entirely away, with the exception of the sills, which still remained bolted to the deck. The long-boat, also, which is almost invariably stowed on top of the main hatch, was gone, not ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... January, 1608, both vessels were under sail, and by six p.m. were ten leagues west-southerly[159] from the south point of the bay of Saldanha. The 19th we shipped much sea at the helm port, and at the hole abaft in my gallery, about two hours after midnight, which wet some of our bales of cloth. We were then in lat. 35 deg. 22' S. [I allow thirteen leagues S.S.E. wind E.N.E. and N.E. six leagues drift S. and three leagues N.E. wind all westerly.[160]] Our too ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... sea spits at it. Lucy shrieked and crouched behind the tarpaulin. David took the helm, and, seeing Talboys white, said kindly: "Why don't you go forward, sir, and make yourself snug under the folksel deck? she is sure to wet us abaft before ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... and De Guichen in the prolonged chase of May, 1780. Chance permitted a different issue on this occasion. The wind at the moment of first collision, shortly before 8 A.M., was east, and so continued till five minutes past nine, when it shifted suddenly to the southeastward, ahead for the French, abaft for the British. The former, being already close to the wind, could keep their sails full only by bearing away, which broke up their line ahead, the order of battle as ranged for mutual support; while the British being able to luff could stand into the ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... shook it heartily, and the grimy hands cried 'Bravo, missus!' and Liosha, turning and catching sight of me just a bit abaft the funnel beneath the bridge, for the first time, swung up the deck towards me, ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... Without farther hesitation, he sprang across the street, and, collaring Albumazar, exclaimed, "Aha! old boy, is the wind in that corner? I thought we should grapple one day—now will I bring you up by the head, though all the devils in hell were blowing abaft ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... practice. I got up on a pretty high rock, and got a good start, and went swooping down, aiming for a bush a little over three hundred yards off; but I couldn't seem to calculate for the wind, which was about two points abaft my beam. I could see I was going considerable to looard of the bush, so I worked my starboard wing slow and went ahead strong on the port one, but it wouldn't answer; I could see I was going to broach to, so I slowed down on both, and lit. I went back to the ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... Pollux," and now "St. Elmo's Fire"; yet they had but one of these at a time, and this is thought a sign of tempest. On September 9, in the afternoon, "the general," as they called him, Sir Humphrey, was sitting abaft with a book in his hand, and cried out more than once to those in the other vessel, "We are as near to heaven by sea as by land." And that same night about twelve o'clock, the frigate being ahead of the Golden Hind, the lights of the smaller vessel suddenly ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... not used in Esperanto. Aback, to take surprizi. Abaft posta parto. Abandon forlasi. Abase humiligi. [Error in book: humilgi] Abash hontigi. Abate (lower) mallevi. Abate (speed) malakceli. Abbey abatejo. Abbot abato. Abbreviate mallongigi. Abdicate demeti la regxecon. Abdomen ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... coats; a considerable piece of ordnance aft, and several petararoes or swivel-pieces upon the after-bulwark rails. Gaffs and booms were in their places, and the sails furled upon them. The figuration of the main hatch showed a small square, and there was a companion or hatch-cover abaft the mainmast. There was no trace of a boat. She had a flush or level deck from the well in the bows to a fathom or so past the main-shrouds; it was then broken by a short poop-deck, which went in a great spring or rise to the stern, ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... perfect night in the Channel. Stars and moon shone brightly, and a streak of light stretched away across the smooth water until it touched the sky Hue far out in the darkness. For a long time I stood on deck, abaft the funnel, smoking a cigar, and thinking deeply. I had turned for a moment, for no particular reason, when I thought I saw a shadow pass across the deck, then vanish. I saw it again; and then again. Stepping away from where I stood, ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... the gunners. You shall pull down all the cabins betwixt the decks and use the beds and sacks for bulwarks, and shall appoint your muskets to several officers, some to make good the forecastle, some the waist, and others abaft the mast, from whence they shall not stir till they be otherwise directed, neither shall they or the gunners shoot a shot till they ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... with a heavy surge running. This proved fortunate, for the better testing of the efficacy of the system. In the first trial, a boat was lowered from the steamer by one man, with several persons on board, and alighted on the water, abaft of the larboard paddle-box, with the utmost safety and apparent comfort, the tackle being released momentarily by the weight of the boat's descent, the vessel at the time steaming at the rate of 12-1/2 knots per ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... t' unharness his steeds, When the ferry-boat brasking her sides 'gainst the weeds, Came in as good time as good time could be, To give us a cast o'er an arm of the sea; And bestowing our horses before and abaft, O'er god Neptune's wide cod-piece gave us a waft; Where scurvily landing at foot of the fort, Within very few paces we entered the port, Where another King's Head invited me down, For indeed I have ever been ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... heavy showers, and the squalls which followed some time afterwards, changed the wind, which turned to the west. They had the wind thus abaft, and he sailed thus during five hours with the foresail only, having always the troubled sea, and made at once two leagues and a half towards the northeast. He had lowered the main topmast lest a wave ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... jumped and shook to the accompaniment of cracks and groans, and some of the men who had been in the berths hurried on deck. The pressure eased a little later in the day, when the ice on the port side broke away from the ship to just abaft the main rigging. The 'Endurance' was still held aft and at the rudder, and a large mass of ice could be seen adhering to the port bow, rising to within three feet of the surface. I wondered if this ice had got its grip ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... wayed ancre, and bare further off into the sea, where they ancred in seuen fathom water, the ship being very leake, and so rotten abaft the maine mast, that a man with his nailes might scrape thorow ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... went on, still better Q dodges had to be invented. One day an old Q tramp, loaded chock-a-block with light-weight lumber, quietly let herself be torpedoed, just giving the wheel a knowing touch to take the torpedo well abaft the engine-room, where it would do least harm. The "panic-party" then left the ship quite crewless so far as anybody outside of her could see. But the "sub" was taking no risks that day. She circled the Q, almost grazing her, but keeping fifteen ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... much as possible, as otherwise we could do them little harm. By shooting a piece from our forecastle, we set fire to a mat at the beak head of the enemy, which kindled more and more, communicating from the mat to the boltsprit, and thence to the top-sail-yard; by which fire the Portuguese abaft were much alarmed, and began to make show of a parley: But their officers encouraged them, alleging that the fire could be easily extinguished, on which they again stood stiffly to their defence; yet ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... see anything worse than this." I went on deck, obliged to hold firmly to the rails or some part of the rigging, for the wind was such as to have carried me overboard if I had attempted to stand alone on the quarter-deck. We were running with the wind dead abaft, under a reefed fore-topsail and a storm jib, everything else having been taken in the night before. The studding-sail boom of the foreyard, which had been carelessly left out, had been broken off short in the earing, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... providentially fitted. The rain, however, beat on its glass in such sheets that he could not possibly have read the compass card floating by the wick. Nor—I am sure—was he trying to read it. He just sat and steered by the feel of the seas as they lurched ahead and sank abaft. The lamplight glowed up on his cheek-bones, but was lost under the pent of his sou'wester, which had a sort of crease or channel in its fore-flap, that shed down the rain in a flood. Though we lay, we passengers, on the bottom boards we could see nothing of his ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her port side with a high, false deck, from which ran eighteen brows, or gangways, by which the storming and demolition parties were to land. The men gathered in readiness on the main lower decks, while Colonel Elliott, who was to lead the marines, waited on the false deck just abaft the bridge. Captain Hallahan, who commanded the bluejackets, was amidships. The word for the assault had not yet been given when ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... Abaft the funnel in these ships there is an upright oval tube rising some seventeen feet above the level of the main deck, plated with iron. The upper plate is pierced with several small horizontal slits, from which the tube has received the ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... in that respect. 15. While he was in England the British had given him very honorable positions in America in order to have his help if they had any trouble with the colonies. 16. Up and down the engines pounded. It is a good twenty-one knots now, and the upper deck abaft the chart-house began rapidly to fill. 17. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln regret that a previous engagement, will prevent them from accepting Mrs. Black's kind invitation for Thursday. 18. Mr. Rockwell will accept with pleasure the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Pembroke for Tuesday evening, December ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... a roomy ship inside, with a raised poop standing some three feet higher than the deck, and a small forward house, for the men's bunks and the galley, just abaft the foremast. There was one boat on the house, and another and larger one, in beds on deck, on either hand of it. She had been painted white, with tropical economy, outside and in; and we found, later on, that the stanchions ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for Clingman had suspended it inboard under the rail. The sail had been stowed away in the bow of the boat, and it was brought out and overhauled. It was nearly new, and needed no repairs. It was a lug-foresail, with a gaff, but no boom. It was stepped just abaft the galley, and the sail could be set in two or three minutes when ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... run to the quay. Fifty pairs of hands were applied to this line, and the lugger advanced rapidly toward her place of shelter. But an artifice was practised to prevent her heading into the harbor's mouth, the line having been brought inboard abaft her larboard cathead, a circumstance which necessarily gave her a sheer in the contrary direction, or to the eastward of the entrance. When the reader remembers that the scale on which the port had been constructed was small, the entrance scarce exceeding a hundred feet in width, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... quite close to the shore, at length struck the ground forcibly several times in the space of a hundred yards, and being then brought up by it, remained immoveable, the depth of water under her keel abaft being sixteen feet, or about a foot less than she drew. The Fury, continuing to drive, was now irresistibly carried past us, and we escaped, only by a few feet, the damage invariably occasioned by ships coming in ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... some reply; but what it was, I did not catch; for, abruptly, away aft, my rather sleepy gaze had lighted on something altogether extraordinary and outrageous. It was nothing less than the form of a man stepping inboard over the starboard rail, a little abaft the main rigging. I stood up, and caught at the ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... an' they can't catch me with a racehorse," he said, "after I pass Chicacomico wharf, an' git abaft the marshes. I'm boozy fur sleep. Thar's two in this crew I don't know, and I must be helmsman. Bingavast! I'll make my nigger work ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... allow removal of the cylinder head for inspection and repair. The position of the wheels, stack, and masts in Marestier's sketch of the ship make it certain that the engine was on the lower deck, abaft the paddle wheel shaft. Due to differences between the dimensions stated by Marestier and in the Vail account books and what the graphic scale in Marestier's engine drawings produce, the exact dimensions of the engine are uncertain. Nevertheless, they can be approximated ...
— The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model - United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80 • Howard I. Chapelle
... when they stood to windward the smell of the slaves being wafted abaft and reaching the fine gilded poop where the Infanta and her attendants travelled, the helmsmen were ordered to put about, and for long weary hours the slaves would hold the galley in position, backing her up gently against the wind so as not to ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... I was relieved by Thomson, who at daylight apprized me that the maintopmast was sprung, and that the gale was increasing. Scarcely had I gone on deck, when a tremendous sea struck us a little "abaft the beam," carrying every thing before it, and washing overboard hencoops, cables, water-casks, and indeed every movable article on the deck. Thomson, almost by miracle, escaped being lost; but having, in common ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... notice that one of his crew abaft near the wheel was watching him closely, while creeping along the railing on the pretence of cleaning it. Fielding was absorbed in making notes upon a piece of paper and moving the little flags about. Now he lit a cigar and began walking up and down ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... above the beach that skirted the two inclines, going either way, up which the waggons had been a couple of hours ago scrambling over the shingle against time, to land one more load yet while the ebb allowed it. They could hear the yeo-yeo! of the sail-hoisters at work on the big mainsail abaft, and wondered how on earth she was going to be got clear with so little sea-way and the wind dead in shore. But they were reassured by the ancient mariner with the striped shirt, whose mission in life seemed to be to stand about and enlighten land-minds about sea-facts. The master of yander ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... went out from the shore, her sails were over on the right hand side; that is, she took the wind abaft the port beam. The boat was now careened over nearly to her rail, and was darting through the water like a rocket. Kate trembled, but ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... this reflection rested, when I was exactly in a proper line abaft the steamer, I was enabled to steer altogether by the shadowy image, although I could not see the object itself to which I was directing the bow of my boat. The captain and crew of the steamer were very much astonished ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... lethargy than natural slumber, fell on me at once. I neither stirred nor heard any thing till near two o'clock, when a piercing shriek from the deck aroused me. The moon had set, but there was light enough to show the decks abaft filled with men, though I could distinguish neither their persons nor movements. Cries of appeal, and moans as of wounded or dying, constantly reached me. I roused myself as well and quickly as I could from the oppression of my deathlike sleep, and tried to shake off the nightmare. The effort assured ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... the enemy had done her best. She had completely demolished Eblis's bridge and searchlight platform, brought down the mast and the fore-funnel, ruined the whaler and the dinghy, split the foc'sle open above water from the stem to the galley which is abaft the bridge, and below water had opened it up from the stem to the second bulkhead. She had further ripped off Eblis's skin-plating for an amazing number of yards on one side of her, and had fired a couple of large-calibre shells into Eblis ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... starboard side of the upper and main decks abaft of the engine, will be kept clear of men and reserved for the use of officers, both of the command and of the ship, during the day; and such portion of this space as may necessarily be occupied by the men for sleeping at night, will have a passage kept entirely clear for the use ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... heard her doom. This done, Dian' by such a sacrifice appeas'd As Dian' best became; and sooth'd her ire, The angry aspect of the seas was smooth'd; And all the thousand vessels felt the breeze Abaft, and bore the long impatient crowd To Phrygia's shores. A spot there lies, whose seat Midst of created space, 'twixt earth, and sea, And heavenly regions, on the confines rests Of the three-sever'd world; whence ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... front windows in the pilot-house unglazed, so as to serve as ventilators for the lamp. The top of the cabin overlaps the sides one-eighth of an inch all around. Cut a hatch in the cabin roof abaft the steam-drum; this is intended to oil the engine through, and try the steam-taps, without taking off the whole of the cabin. The cabin is kept in place by the funnel, which slips off just above the roof. The slit in the cabin ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... out into the brightly lighted main corridor, near the ladder to the upper gallery, turned to the right and walked aft. A door, just a little abaft the chartroom and, opposite the Master's cabin, gave a glimpse of the as yet unoccupied smoke-room. Astern of this, they passed the dining-saloon with its long table and its swivel-chairs. Beyond several stateroom doors they came to the transverse corridor at the ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... down an' do all the swearin' fer the hull ship from now on. You'll git yer pay jest the same as if ye done the cookin'. It's a big job but I guess ye're ekal to it. I'll agree that they won't nobody try to grab it. Ye may have a little help afore the mast but none abaft." ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... trouble at Fort o' God. "Out of this place we get betwixt the suns," said Gyng the Factor. "No help that falls abaft tomorrow could save us. Food dwindles, and ammunition's nearly gone, and they'll have the cold steel in our scalp-locks if we stay. We'll creep along the Devil's Causeway, then through the Red Horn Woods, and so across the plains to Rupert House. Whip in the dogs, Baptiste, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... she any cause to regret doing so; for, to her huge delight, she found herself moved into a charming deck-cabin on the starboard side of the vessel, some little way abaft the engine-room. It was evidently an officer's cabin, for there, over the head of the bed, was the picture of a young lady he adored, and also some neatly fitted shelves of books, a rack of telescopes, and ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... men were smoking in a sheltered corner, some walking up and down, two or three trying to play quoits, one looking at the poultry, one standing abaft the purser's cabin with hands in the pockets of his long ragged overcoat, watching the engines, and two more—carpenters—were discussing a big cedar log, about five feet in diameter, which was lashed on deck ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... experienced very bad weather, but had the satisfaction to learn that the bombs and gunboats had arrived safe at Syracuse, the 15th instant, without accident. Each of the Tripoline gunboats which we have captured has two brass howitzers abaft, and a handsome copper gun in the bow, which carries a twenty-nine pound shot, is eleven and a half feet long, and weighs ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the Gent. Mag. for 1776, p. 382, this hulk seems to be mentioned:—'The felons sentenced under the new convict-act began to work in clearing the bed of the Thames about two miles below Barking Creek. In the vessel wherein they work there is a room abaft in which they are to sleep, and in the forecastle a kind of cabin for the overseer.' Ib. p. 254, there is an admirable paper, very likely by Bentham, on the punishment of convicts, which Johnson might ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... elapsed. It was nearly noon, and the stewards had bridged the spaces in the row of square saloon-tables and were laying the cloth for the mid-day meal. Charlotte opened her door guardedly, as one fearing to face prying eyes, and finding the coast clear, slipped out to rejoin her aunt under the awning abaft the paddle-box. Miss Gilman shut her finger into the magazine to keep her place and looked up in ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... go by the second cabin, where at least I should have a table at command. The advice was excellent; but to understand the choice, and what I gained, some outline of the internal disposition of the ship will first be necessary. In her very nose is Steerage No. 1, down two pair of stairs. A little abaft, another companion, labelled Steerage No. 2 and 3, gives admission to three galleries, two running forward towards Steerage No. 1, and the third aft towards the engines. The starboard forward gallery is the second cabin. Away abaft the engines and below the officers' cabins, to complete our ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... carried at a greater height above the hull than 40 feet a bright white light so constructed as to show an unbroken light over an arc of the horizon of 20 points of the compass, so fixed as to throw the light 10 points on each side of the vessel—namely, from right ahead to 2 points abaft the beam on either side—and of such a character as to be visible at a distance ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... nose and down his cheek, and he wore two immense gold earrings. His dress consisted of short cotton drawers, that did not reach within two inches of his knee, leaving his thin cucumber shanks (on which the small bullet-like calf appeared to have been stuck before, through mistake, in place of abaft) naked to the shoe; a check shirt, and an enormously large Panama hat, made of a sort of cane, split small, and worn shovel-fashion. Notwithstanding, he made his bow by no means ungracefully, and offered his services ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... felt his way into the deeper gloom he heard a movement close at hand, and stopped, leaning against the bulkhead, just abaft of the galley. He saw that the light from outside marked the cabin door as a great rectangle in which a moving form could easily be seen ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... here," Cap'n Amazon said. "'I haven't spoke to Professor Grayling. He don't know Abe Silt from the jib-boom. Why should he? I am a foremast hand and he lives abaft. But he is a fine man. Everybody says so. We've had ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... seats on the vessel for a poor soldier. On the main deck there were a large number of seats, but they were all reserved for the officers. A sentinel was posted on either side of the ship near the middle hatch-way, and no soldier was allowed to go abaft for any purpose, except to report to his superior officer or on some other ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... seat is fitted abaft the engine and the pilot's seat is aft of the observer. The observer, who is also the wireless operator, has the wireless apparatus fitted about his seat. This consists of a receiver and transmitter fitted inside the car, which derives ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... to be done with our heels. They used to be good, and I never saw the brass-bottomed sarpent that could come anear us yet. Send the royal yards up—clear away the studding-sails—keep her with the wind just two points abaft the beam, that's her favourite position; and I think we may give the slip to that old-country devil in ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... surely have, the same as Egypt's Queen, And it will be the finest barge that ever you have seen; With polished mast of stout pitch pine, tipped with a ball of gold, And two green trees in two white tubs placed just abaft the hold. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... high in the heavens, and a flood of silver poured in a dazzling stream across the level surface of the sea. The quarter-deck, the white boats amidships, and all the brass work abaft the funnels ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... needing new timbers abaft the beam there for years," quoth Captain Glass. "But the chronometers will be out of commission for the ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... sight, as we bowled along through that deserted sea. Before my watch was up I could see Gunsaules through the skylight busily preparing the table in the cabin below. It was still daylight, but with a purple gleam across the waters, when LeVere arrived on deck for my relief. We were talking together abaft the wheel when Estada ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... sagas, of burying the viking in his ship, drawn up on land, and raising a barrow over it, is exemplified by the ship-burials discovered in Norway. The ship found in the Gokstad mound was 78 ft. long, and had a mast and sixteen pairs of oars. In a chamber abaft the mast the viking had been laid, with his weapons, and together with him were [v.03 p.0442] buried twelve horses, six dogs and a peacock. An interesting example of the great timber-chambered barrow is that at Jelling ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... charge; the binnacle with its compass was of a size and prominence almost comically impressive, and was, moreover the only piece of brass which was burnished and showed traces of reverent care. Two huge coils of stout and dingy warp lay just abaft the mainmast, and summed up the weather-beaten aspect of the little ship. I should add here that in the distant past she had been a lifeboat, and had been clumsily converted into a yacht by the addition of a counter, deck, and the necessary ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... heap on the floor in his haste, and he did not trouble to pack them away again. He buckled Joey into the garment, fastened his own oilskins, and rejoined the second officer on the bridge. A glance showed him the dark wall of the mainsail rising abaft the after funnel. The quarter-master at the wheel, having recovered his wits, was keeping the ship's nose up to the wind by a steady pressure to port. The gale was as fierce as ever. The second officer ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... much seen. It is then carried aft, and, being placed across the after-hatchway, the union jack is thrown over all. Sometimes it is placed between two of the guns, under the half deck; bat generally, I think, he is laid where I have mentioned, just abaft the mainmast. I should have mentioned before, that as soon as the surgeon's ineffectual professional offices are at an end, he walks to the quarter-deck, and reports to the officer of the watch that one of his patients has just ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... on their starboard beam now, the dun Orkneys off the port bow. Sumburgh Head dropped away, and they headed due west.... The waves were laughing, the sun rose in a great explosion abaft of them.... The world was a very small place.... The universe so large.... At dawn the gulls chattered and whined, and screamed until they felt immense loneliness.... One seemed to be intruding in a world of white feathers and cold ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... staggered and sickened me at first; but they soon began to fall around me so fast that it all appeared like a dream and produced no effect upon my nerves. I can remember well, while I was standing near the captain just abaft of the mainmast, a shot came through the waterways and glanced upward, killing four men who were standing by the side of the gun, taking the last one in the head and scattering his brains over both of us. ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... about six bells in the middle watch, or three o'clock in the morning; the heavens were clear and unclouded; the stars shone with great brilliancy; there was a pleasant breeze from the south-east, and the ship was gliding quietly along, with the wind abaft the beam, at the rate of five or six knots. Suddenly Mr. Fairfield, whose nose was not remarkable for size, but might with propriety be classed among the SNUBS, ceased to play upon it its accustomed tune in the night watches, sprang from ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Hatton, there is no sadder sight than a ship giving up the fight, because further fight is useless. Once I was present at the death of a ship. I pray God that I may never see the like again. Her captain and her men had left her alone, and from the boats standing abaft, they silently watched her sinking. Sir, many a man dies in his bed with all his kin around, and does not carry as much love with him as she did. Why-a! The thought of that hour brings a pain to my heart yet—and it is ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... up to the bulwark's side, And one after one they stepped on board. Dead men, with eyes that opened wide With the stare of blindness—gracious Lord! One of them groped his way abaft, And laid his swollen hand on the wheel. His hand that in death was clammy and damp; His blind eyes stared at the binnacle lamp, As if the dead hand had nerves of steel, He altered the ship's course in spite of me Who could only stare at ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... defendant; I only know, as I have said already, that Tom knocked Jack down with a marlinspike." "Here," said the counsel, "is a pretty witness, who does not know the plaintiff from the defendant!" Proceeding in his cross examination, the counsel asked where the affray happened? The answer was, "Abaft the binnacle." "Abaft the binnacle! where's that?" "Here," said the witness, "is a pretty counsel for you, that does not know abaft the binnacle!" The counsel, not yet abashed, asked, "And pray, my witty friend, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... plainly enough, just abaft the main-mast, and he seemed to have stopped there and to be looking over the bulwark—I merely guessed as much, for the sound had stopped, and ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... by about eight feet high; the sides and the ceiling were panelled, and painted in cream, light blue, and gold; and it was furnished with three tables—one on either side of the cabin, running fore-and-aft, with a good wide gangway between, and one athwartships and abaft the other two, with seats on the after side of it only, so that no one was called upon to turn his or her back upon those sitting at the other two tables. The tables were gleaming with snow-white napery, crystal, and silver; and were further adorned with handsome flowering plants ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... worked her paddles. As the Queen backed out the Webb dashed in at full speed, and tore away the remaining coal barge. Both the forward guns fired at the Webb, but missed her. Returning to the charge, the Queen struck the Indianola abaft the paddle box, crushing her frame and loosening some plates of armor, but received the fire of the guns from the rear casemates. One shot carried away a dozen bales of cotton on the right side; the other, a shell, entered the forward port-hole ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... and also the clerk, Mr. Samuel, but he soon obtained leave to come on deck. The fore hatchway was guarded by centinels; the boatswain and carpenter were, however, allowed to come on deck, where they saw me standing abaft the mizen-mast, with my hands tied behind my back, under a guard, with ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... resolute, and he was also youthful enough to almost wish it should "come to it." And with foresight he even instructed the boat's crew to keep the gig just abaft the main ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad |
