"Binnacle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the bridge with the slow alertness of responsibility. He would walk from port to starboard, glance forrard and aft, peer at the wide crescent of the starlit sea, stroll back to port, and again scan ship and horizon. Sometimes he halted in front of the binnacle lamp to make certain that the man at the wheel was keeping the course, South 15 West, set by Captain Coke shortly before midnight. His ears listened mechanically to the steady pulse-beats of the propeller; his eyes swept the vague ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... sloop began to feel the sea and swing to it. She was a dark and secret ship: not a light save for the glare of the binnacle-lamp; the only sound the creak of a block, the mutter of canvas, ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... on deck in the middle of the night, looking very grotesque and bandy-legged in his sleeping suit. At that sight the persecuted Bunter would wring his hands stealthily, and break out into moisture all over his forehead. After standing sleepily by the binnacle, scratching himself in an unpleasant manner, Captain Johns was sure to start on some aspect or other ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... rejoinder. "Invalid's pessimism," was my private comment. And yet the sick man was whole for the time being; the virile spirit was once more master of the recreant members; and it was with illogical relief that I found those I sought standing almost unconcernedly beside the binnacle. ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... and the course from the rather distressed incumbent, and, even though the ship was riding along before a stiff quartering breeze and following sea, steered a course good enough to win silence from the skipper—another big, bearded man—when he next looked into the binnacle. Silence, on such occasions, is ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... tolerable good trim in this particular; I already knew the difference between fore and aft, a gib, a mainsail, and a mizen;could hand a rope, or let go the foresail upon a tack; and having gained the good opinion of the sailing captain, I was fast acquiring a knowledge how to box the binnacle and steer through the Needle's Eye. But, my conscience! as the Dominie says, I could never learn how to distinguish the different vessels by name, particularly when at a little distance; their build and rigging ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... cotton-wool and a tin of vaseline, and coated the poor man's hurts as well as I could. Then, as he still groaned, though more feebly, I got out my phial of morphia and a needle. As I held the bottle against a sort of binnacle-light by which Macnaughten sat steering, I caught his eyes staring down on me, quiet and solemn. I tell you, that man was ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... compass was not registering correctly. Standing out to sea until they were at a safe distance from the treacherous shore rocks, a careful examination was made. The binnacle had been left in St. Johns for necessary repairs, and the examination discovered that iron screws had been used to make the compass box fast to the cabin. These screws were responsible for a serious deviation of the needle, and this it was that had so ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... in the confined space the glass of the binnacle made a shiny oval of light in a thin white fog. The wind howled, hummed, whistled, with sudden booming gusts that rattled the doors and shutters in the vicious patter of sprays. Two coils of lead-line and a small canvas bag hung on a long lanyard, ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... sea was smooth, and the moon shone brightly; a light air filled the sails, while the tall ship glided calmly onward. It was indeed such a night as one might have thought it impossible any accident could happen to a ship in. While we were walking the deck, Boxall stepped up to the binnacle and glanced at the compass. On returning ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... sky, Minot's Light shone. The vessel was heeling slightly in the crisp evening wind, her full, rounded sails rustling overhead, her cordage creaking, foam at her forefoot and her wake stretching backward toward the land she was leaving. Her skipper stood aft by the binnacle, feeling, with a joy quite indescribable, the lift of the deck beneath him and the rush of the breeze across ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... binnacle lamp was extinguished, and the light in the cabin burned too dimly to throw the faintest colour upon the hatchway. One thing I quickly noticed, that the gale had broken and blew no more than a fresh breeze. The sea still ran ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... I asked in a deadened voice, taking the lighted lamp out of the binnacle, and raising it ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... morning, we made sail to the North by West, but, from the compass-box not being quite straight in the binnacle, we made a North by West 1/2 West course, which was not discovered until we had nearly paid dear for our neglect; for we passed close to a rock which I intended to have gone at least a mile to windward of. It was seen ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... you disobey orders," said I, "the Captain can tie you up to the binnacle, and give you forty lashes and put you ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... plunge into the swirling sea, followed by an indefinite period of gasping oblivion. Something that felt like a moving rock rose up beneath his feet. He was driven clear out of the water and seemed to recognize a familiar object rising rigid and bright close at hand. It was the binnacle pillar, screwed to a portion of the deck which came away from the charthouse and was rent from the upper framework by contact with ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... he was much surprised at several articles on board particularly the compasses in the binnacle. "On my conducting him down into the cabin and placing him before a looking-glass he expressed wonder by innumerable gestures, attitudes and grimaces. He narrowly examined it to see if any one was behind it; and he did not ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... I may be said to be constant. I don't know how it is with you, Sir Wycherly, but every thing I am accustomed to I like. Now, here I have sailed with both these gentlemen, until I should as soon think of going to sea without a binnacle, as to go to sea without 'em both—hey! Atwood? Then, as to the ship, my flag has been flying in the Plantagenet these ten years, and I can't bear to give the old craft up, though Bluewater, here, would ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... behind clouds of smoky red, but the light of the summer evening lasted for some time after. Then darkness came down over the sea, and it was desolate except for the sidelights of distant craft. The mate drew out his watch and by the light of the binnacle-lamp, saw that it was ten minutes to ten. At the same moment he heard ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... concords of sweet sound sacred or social flow around or harmony is woo'd, nor where the Horse-Shoe meets his sight on land or sea by day or night on lowly sill or lofty pinnacle on bowsprit helm mast boom or binnacle, said ...
— The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil • Edward G. Flight
... two bottles of rum; but so rapidly did she fill, from the timber of her cargo shifting, that he was forced to break through the sky-light to save himself. Their small stock of provisions was now put into the binnacle, as a secure place. It had been there but a few minutes, when a tremendous sea struck them, and carried ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... Fortunately there was no moon, and the night which followed was exceedingly dark, so that, by putting out all the lights on board and altering our course four points, we hoped to get out of her reach. We removed the light in the binnacle, and steered by the stars, and kept perfect silence through the night. At daybreak there was no sign of anything in the horizon, and we kept the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Ebba has been travelling at the rate of from ten to eleven knots an hour. As to the direction we have been going in, it is always the same, and I have been able to verify this by casual glances at the binnacle. If the fore part of the vessel is barred to Warder Gaydon he has been allowed a free run of the remainder of it. Time and again I have glanced at the compass, and noticed that the needle invariably pointed to the east, or to ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... by I heard a familiar voice at the door—could 'a' heard it a block—and pretty soon Sam himself comes rolling in. He was carrying a monstrous turkey, and he spied Archie first thing. And, "Hullo, Archie boy," he shouts. "Throw your binnacle lights on that, will you? Thirty pounds he weighs—like you see him—and twenty-five he'll weigh, or I'm no fancy poultry raiser, when he's ready for ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... 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 him and gasp, For I was in the nightmare's grasp. Fiends in the air around me laughed; But the dead man worked on all silently, Nor noticed the ecstacy of my fears; Yet he was a man ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... of the watch went to the binnacle, and setting the wind as nearly as he could, replied, "Tell Sir Theophilus that it is S.W. and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... little bridge-house the dim light from the binnacle shone on the hard wet face of the commanding officer, who watched the seas as they rose up ahead, giving directions to the man at the wheel, and all the while keeping a watchful eye on the distant blur of foam covering ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... country fare best, though Gopher made hotel dishes, with French names, for the after cabin. When I went on deck, I found Owen smoking his cigar in the pilot-house. He was reading one of a pile of Florida guide-books I had procured in Jacksonville, which I had placed by the binnacle for his use. ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... the schooner, with the spray dashing wildly about her bows and everything drawing, was running before a strong wind through darkness so black that her flying-jib-boom could not be seen, and there was no light on board except the one in the binnacle. ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... be moving along a line that'll cross somewhere northard of New Zealand," Daughtry guessed to himself, after a hundred stolen glances into the binnacle. But that was all the information concerning the ship's navigation he could steal; for Captain Doane took the observations and worked them out, to the exclusion of the mate, and Captain Doane always methodically locked up his chart and log. That there were heated discussions ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... close to the gangway, watching their operations. I was surprised to find that there were no guns or carronades of any kind in the vessel, which had more of the appearance of a fast-sailing trader than a pirate. But I was struck with the neatness of everything. The brass work of the binnacle and about the tiller, as well as the copper belaying-pins, were as brightly polished as if they had just come from the foundry. The decks were pure white, and smooth. The masts were clean-scraped and varnished, except at the cross-trees and truck, which were painted black. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... was not worn off, a sickly greenish white, and giving a general impression of dirt and want of attention. She was flush-decked, and sat high in the water, with a freeboard of nearly five feet. A little forward of amidships was a small deck cabin containing a brass wheel and binnacle. Aft of the cabin, in the middle of the open space of the deck, was a skylight, the top of which formed two short seats placed back to back. Forward rose a stumpy mast carrying a lantern cage near the top, and still farther forward, almost in the bows, lay an ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... was, however, for the last time, for the very same night a tremendous sea broke over the ship, tearing away all her upper works, and sweeping the captain and six of the sailors overboard. The water poured in torrents into the cabins, and drove every one from the berths. The bulwarks, boats, and binnacle were carried clean off, and the mainmast had to be cut away. The sailors then turned the ship about, and after a long and dangerous voyage, succeeded in bringing her, dismasted as ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Jack and Mesty led the way aft; not a soul was to be seen: indeed, it was too dark to see anybody unless they were walking the deck. The companion-hatch was secured, and the gratings laid on the after-hatchways, and then they went aft to the binnacle again, where there was a light burning. Mesty ordered two of the men to go forward to secure the hatches, and then to remain there on guard—and then the rest of the men and our hero ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... rail awash, was running something east of north, on an easy bowline, carrying a bone in her teeth and leaving a bubbling wake trailing far astern. With everything thus satisfactorily in shape, White lighted the binnacle lamp, and giving Cabot a course to steer, went below to prepare the first meal of their long cruise. "You must keep a sharp lookout," he said as he disappeared down the companionway, "for I don't dare show any lights. So if we are run into we'll ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... first freer breath in the busy day of departure. The pilot was still on board, who gave him first a silent glance, and then passed an insignificant remark before resuming his lounging to and fro between the steering wheel and the binnacle. Powell took his station modestly at the break of the poop. He had noticed across the skylight a head in a grey cap. But when, after a time, he crossed over to the other side of the deck he discovered that it was not the captain's ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... The binnacle from the whaleboat had been brought into the pilot-house, and Christy compared it with the compass in the Teaser's apparatus, after Dave had lighted it. There was no disagreement, and as the tide was still ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... place, which I once rather despised, looked most attractive when we came down towards it from the hills. I could see the beautiful, white Snowbird at anchor, looking very small, and the sunlight played on the brass binnacle which shone like a burning light. Near it, very lowly and humble, rode the poor little fishing smacks that are far more important to the world's welfare than our expensive plaything. The crop of ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... told him to go back quietly to his berth, and if he could gain any further information, to try and let Mr Henley or me know. I immediately dressed, and, followed by Solon, who jumped up as soon as he saw me afoot, went on deck. I found Mr Henley standing near the binnacle. It was a star-lit night. He was noting the bearing of ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... congenital self-esteem. Prince Karl lived the life of an ordinary middy, scrubbed decks, mended his own clothes, slept in a hammock, and ate provender which was anything but fit to set before a king. It is recorded of him that he was an expert in polishing a certain brass binnacle lantern. We wonder if he ever thinks now of a certain line in Pinafore, "I polished that handle so care-ful-lee, ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... missed it, when the hawk again rose high in the air, and a second time began to descend, contract his circle, and make at him again. The second time he hit the bird, and struck it to the deck.... This strange fact made him uneasy, and he thought it betokened danger; he went to the binnacle, saw the course he was steering, and without any particular reason he ordered the steersman to alter the course one point to ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... to severe discipline on board a ship, they do sometimes forget what they are subject to here, and "slip the cable upon an ocean of grog," grow dizzy over the binnacle, unship the rudder, lose their calculations, and stand too far out to sea to reach the intended Port; but more of this presently. You perceive this magnificent structure consists of four grand buildings, completely separated from each other; yet forming a very entire and most beautiful ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... his cabin, and Scott walked aft to the compass abaft the mainmast. The binnacle was lighted, and he looked into it. The course was all right, though the ship yawed a good deal in the trough of the sea, the gale pelting her squarely on the beam. Though it was not an easy thing even ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... weather, was induced, out of pity for the poor destitute creature, to take her aboard. And she was now with her child, all alone, below in the cabin I was stationed a-head on the out-look beside the foresail horse: the night had grown pitch dark; and the lamp in the binnacle threw just light enough through the grey of the shower to show me the master at the helm. He looked more anxious, I thought, than I had almost ever seen him before, though I have been with him, mistress, in ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... stand up with his face near the deck, upon which men swung on the ends of ropes, like nest robbers upon a cliff. One of his feet was on somebody's chest; his face was purple; his lips moved. He yelled also; he yelled, bending down:—"No! No!" Mr. Baker, one leg over the binnacle-stand, roared out:—"Did you say no? Not cut?" He shook his head madly. "No! No!" Between his legs the crawling carpenter heard, collapsed at once, and lay full length in the angle of the skylight. Voices took up the shout—"No! No!" Then all became still. They waited ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... represented under any particular personification, but generally by a tablet bearing a short inscription and a taper burning before it. Every ship, however small, has its tablet and its taper; and within the compass-box or binnacle a taper ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... did so, and saw, as the professor had stated, that with every movement of the tiller, right or left, up or down, the propeller inclined itself at a corresponding angle. A handsome binnacle compass stood immediately in front of the tiller, but the professor did not call attention to it, rightly assuming that his companions were fully acquainted ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... we slipped our shoes from our feet. He then descended into the forecastle, and I sauntered aft toward the quarter-deck. All was still. Thrice did I pass my hand full before the face of the slumbering lubber at the helm, and right between him and the light of the binnacle. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... Kit went into the pilot house. The dim light of the binnacle lamp touched the compass, but everything else was dark and the windows were down. Kit could see the quartermaster's dark form behind the wheel, and the silver shining of the sea. There was a splash as the man on ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... your bally head shot off some fine day," Captain Ward growled in answer, as he stepped to the binnacle and took the bearing of a peak which had just thrust its head through the clouds ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... weeks later. He has put into Bar Harbor on a yachting trip. He sits writing late at night by the light of the binnacle lamp.) ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... understand what you meant. I have studied up the navigation in this region," continued Captain Scott, as he took from a drawer in the case on which the binnacle stood a small plan of the port in question. "Look at that, Flix, and tell me what the diaeresis over the i in Said ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... True to time, he called Disco, who, equally true to his sense of duty, turned out at once with a deep "Ay, ay, sir." The self-styled first-mate placed his back against a tree, and, endeavouring to believe it to be a capstan, or binnacle, or any other object appertaining to the sea, stared at the ghostly stems of the forest-trees until they began to dance hornpipes for his special gratification, or glowered at the shadows until they became instinct with life, and all ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... binnacle-light and holds it to my face. He was young L'Estrange, my full cousin, that I hadn't seen since the night the smack sank off Telscombe Tye—six ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... the top of a ship's binnacle, as the round brass case which holds a ship's compass is called. He entered the dismal portal of a marine junk shop. The taxi was stopped discreetly a block away. As Owen and Hicks approached the shop they heard a loud argument going ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... selected their candidate for 1868; and, having done that, can no more help conducting their journals with a view to the success of that candidate, than the needle of a compass can help pointing awry when there is a magnet hidden in the binnacle. Here, again, we have no right to censure or complain. Yet we cannot help marvelling at the hallucination which can induce able men to prefer the brief and illusory honors of political station to the substantial and lasting power within the grasp of the successful journalist. He, if any one,—he ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... after we were at sea, I saw a group of savages lying round the binnacle, all intently occupied in observing the phenomenon of the magnetic attraction; they seemed at once to comprehend the purpose to which it was applied, and I listened with eager curiosity to their ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... get you round the ship," he said, in an ill-used tone. "Now look here," he began, "this is the saloon-deck, that's the mizzen-mast, and come along here and I'll show you the binnacle." ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... rice-fed admirals!" He made an improper gesture, his profile and outspread fingers showing in the glow-worm light of the binnacle. "If they follow us through by the Verdronken Rozengain, we'll show them one piece 'e navigation. Can do, eh? These old iron-clad junks are something a man ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... open door disappeared with a bang, and I was left alone in a dripping, yellow darkness. I have been in the Navy for ten years, but I have never known such a fog as that of last night, not even among the icebergs of Behring Sea. There one at least could see the light of the binnacle, but last night I could not even distinguish the hand by which I guided myself along the barrack-wall. At sea a fog is a natural phenomenon. It is as familiar as the rainbow which follows a storm, it is as proper that a fog ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... by the barking of the ship's dog,—we parted with the Smeaton's boat, when the boats of the tender took a fresh departure for that vessel, which lay about half a mile to the south-westward. Yet such is the very deceiving state of the tides, that, although there was a small binnacle and compass in the landing-master's boat, we had, nevertheless, passed the Sir Joseph a good way, when, fortunately, one of the sailors catched the sound of a blowing-horn. The only firearms on board were a pair of swivels of one-inch calibre; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... travellers, down-hauls, sheets, &c. Her canvas consisted of foresail, mainsail, and mizzen with a yard for each. She carried also a jib, the casks for water and provisions, a boat's "bittacle" ( binnacle), with compass and lamp. She was further furnished with a couple of creeping irons for getting up the smugglers' kegs, a grapnel, a chest of arms and ammunition, the Custom House Jack and spy-glass ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... they had gone out of my hearing with their exulting smacks, I should not have envied their soup, but their hungry glee so excited my imagination that I could see nothing through the glazing of the binnacle but a white plate with a slice of lemon on the rim, a loaf of delicate bread, a silver spoon, a napkin, two or three wine glasses of different hues and shapes, and a water goblet clustering round it, and a stream of black, thick, and fragrant ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... was spinning round and round at an almost perpendicular angle in the binnacle with tremendous velocity. The pointer tore round its points like the hands ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... of the fleet; Suarez convened an assemblage of all the captains, masters, and pilots of the fleet, to whom he communicated the following written instructions: 1. As soon as it is night, every ship shall keep in regular order a-stern of the admiral; and no vessel to carry any light except in the binnacle and in the cabin. 2. The masters and pilots to keep regular watch, taking special care not to run foul of each other. 3. All to answer the signals of the admiral. 4. As soon as day appears, every ship shall come to salute the admiral, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... leaped out on deck, selected a small head of cabbage from a broken crate and hurled it forward. Then he sprang back into the pilot house and straightened the Maggie on her course again. He leaned over the binnacle, with the cuff of his watch coat wiping away the moisture on the glass, and studied the instrument carefully. "I don't trust the danged thing," he muttered. "Guess I'll haul her off a coupler points an' try ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... dear Don Pedro!" The Spaniard's tone was one of amused protest. "But is it possible that I mistake? Besides, is there not the compass? Come to the binnacle and see there what course ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... of the ship, and ascended to the quarter-deck where the mate stood leaning over the rail and uttering directed curses from between sweat-beaded lips. There the big man roamed aimlessly on what seemed to be a tour of casual inspection. Once he stopped to breathe on the brass binnacle and to rub it bright with the dirtiest red bandana handkerchief I ever want ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the board 'Kerrash-o!' 'Course splinters flew like all possessed, and one of 'em, about a foot long, sailed past Nat's head, where he stood heavin' his whole weight on the wheel, and lit right on the binnacle, ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... perform his duty. He had no light, not even a lantern; for fire is so terrible a calamity at sea, that every lamp was extinguished by the stewards at ten o'clock, and no light was allowed, except in the binnacle, without the special permission of the principal Even the captain could not allow a lamp to be lighted ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... faithful to the north, To show of constancy the worth, A curious lesson teaches man; The needle time may rust, a squall capsize the binnacle and all, Let seamanship do all it can; My love in worth shall higher rise! Nor time shall rust, nor squalls capsize, My faith and truth ...
— Old Ballads • Various
... their eyes. A man beside Taffy declared he could see something—the faint glow of a binnacle lamp as she stood away. Taffy could see nothing. The voice ahead began to speak again. The Vicar, pausing now and again to make sure of his path, was reading from a page which he ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... remained in command of the "Serapis." Seating himself on the binnacle, he ordered the lashings which had bound the two ships throughout the bloody conflict to be cut. Then the head-sails were braced back, and the wheel put down. But, as the ship had been anchored at the beginning of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the village, which I had been so anxious to get away from, now looked inviting in comparison. I slowed down the engine and, with an impatient growl, bent over the little binnacle to look at the compass and get my bearings before pointing the Comfort's nose in the direction of Denboro. Then my growl changed to an exclamation of disgust. The compass was not there. I knew where it was. It was on ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... boy, and presently, with great care, launching our patched shallop from the stocks—for the ship-boat was too small to carry six safely—we got quietly away. Rowing with silent stroke, we came alongside the sloop. No light burned save that in the binnacle, and all hands, except the watch, were below at supper ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... picturesque shores of Java and Sumatra. Impenetrable darkness shrouds both earth and sea, and only by the light of the electric flash is the mariner shown how to keep off land, and with shortened sail holds on his way. On board of all vessels, on binnacle, masts and spars are hung lighted lanterns in order to avoid collision with each other, for in the thick darkness that envelopes all around, no object can be discerned at a distance of three yards. In the meantime ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... sworn to tell us what he said, which was the best testimony of all." A century later Lord Mansfield was presiding at a trial consequent upon a collision of two ships at sea, when a common sailor, whilst giving testimony, said, "At the time I was standing abaft the binnacle;" whereupon his lordship, with a proper desire to master the facts of the case, observed, "Stay, stay a minute, witness: you say that at the time in question you were standing abaft the binnacle; now tell me, where is abaft the binnacle?" This ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... but a waste of tumultuous water; but when she was borne up on the summit of the enormous waves, you then looked down, as it were, upon a low, sandy coast, close to you, and covered with foam and breakers. "She behaves nobly," observed the captain, stepping aft to the binnacle, and looking at the compass; "if the wind does not baffle us, we shall weather." The captain had scarcely time to make the observation, when the sails shivered and flapped like thunder. "Up with the helm; ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... light from the binnacle lantern fell on the face of Bentley; tears were standing in the old man's eyes as he looked at them, and he said slowly, as if in response ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... in five hours of the country that we was going to introduce to long drinks and short change the captain calls us over to the starboard binnacle and ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... sun went down. We then changed our course a point or two and threw a sail over the binnacle light so that the suspected pirates could not follow us; and thus we escaped what might have ...
— Piracy off the Florida Coast and Elsewhere • Samuel A. Green
... the little saloon host and guest sat down to a supper of fried fish, blueberries and cream. The small, red curtains were drawn, and over the tiny fireplace a binnacle lamp glowed softly. Forward in the bows, the Scotch engineer and the Indian pilot sat conversing in deliberate monosyllables, and in the east a horned moon floated just clear of the ragged tops of encircling pine trees. Clark ate slowly and felt the burden slipping from his shoulders. ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... binnacle, he listened vainly for another wail from Jerry in the hope of verifying his first hasty bearing. But not long he waited. Despite the fact that by his manoeuvre the Arangi had been hove to, he knew that windage and sea-driftage would quickly send her away from the swimming ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... and out on deck. The blood from his nose gushed in a scarlet stream over the feet of the helmsman, who was none other than Louis, his boat-mate. But Louis took and gave a spoke and gazed imperturbably into the binnacle. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... stood near the binnacle talking to the steersman, a sturdy middle-aged sailor, whose breadth appeared to be nearly ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... relations without effort, true to itself always however the manners of those around it may change. Self-respect and respect for others,—the sensitive consciousness poises itself in these as the compass in the ship's binnacle balances itself and maintains its true level within the two concentric rings which suspend it on their pivots. This thorough-bred school-girl quite enchanted Mr. Bernard. He could not understand where she got her style, her way of dress, her enunciation, her easy manners. The minister was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fog-horn bluff was safe enough, where all was weed and weft, And the conger-eels were a-making meals, and the pick of the tackle left Was a binnacle-lid and a leak in the bilge and the chip of a cracked sheerstrake And the corporal's belt and the moke's cool pelt and a ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... sharply, and in the glow from the binnacle-light they saw he had drawn his revolver, while on the instant up from the void beneath heaved the massive figure of Big George Balt, a behemoth, more colossal and threatening than ever in the dim light. Rumbling curses as he came, he leaped up the pilot-house ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... Mate, at the binnacle, sighted across the wildly swinging compass card. "No' sure, Sir. ... Th' caird swingin' ... think there's hauf a p'int.... Hauf ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... we shall," said Mark, rather despondently; and, tucking his glass under his arm, he went aft again toward where he could see the faint glow from the binnacle light shining up ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... cold, wet days off the coast of Tierra del Fuego it stood me in good stead. Its one door swung on copper hinges, which one of the yard apprentices, with laudable pride, polished till the whole thing blushed like the brass binnacle of ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... and we treated them with hard-tack crumbs and whale-oil. They fell to dancing, and we to laughing,—they danced more and we laughed more, till the oldest woman tumbled in her bear-skin bloomers, and came with a smash right on the little cast-iron frame by the wheel, which screened binnacle and compass. My dear child, there was such a hullalu and such a mess together as I remember now. We had to apologize; the doctor set her head as well as he could. We gave them gingerbread from the cabin, to ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... hauled out a large wooden reel with a log-line on it. With this he at once began to play, dipping the log into the sea and hauling it up repeatedly as though he were fishing, but there was want of variety in this. Looking about him he espied a lead-line near the binnacle; he cut the lead from this, and fastening it to the end of the log-line, began forthwith to take deep-sea soundings. This was quite to his taste, for when he stood upon the vessel's side, in order to let the line ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... out and slipped up after him. The first thing I saw was old Eaton at work at the tiller. He got it unshipped and braced up with a pair of oars and a hencoop, without waking the man at the helm,—how, I couldn't tell,—but he was just like a cat; and then he blew the binnacle-light out; and then he started forrard, with his trumpet in his hand. He caught sight of me, standing halfway up the companion-way, and shook his fist at me to keep quiet and not to spoil sport. He slipped forward and out on to the bowsprit, clear out to the end of the flying-jib-boom, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... standing close to the binnacle, watching the frantic mob of fighting miners, a woman emerged from the after companion, close beside me. She glanced round for a moment, in terror at the conflict that was raging about the boats, and ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... off the women and the boy, and a bag of 400 dollars left in their charge; and was lost with the whole of her cargo. Nor was the Governor Sorell more fortunate: the seamen of the Daphne, who left the island in a boat, saw on the north-east coast of Cape Barren, the binnacle and other fragments of that vessel, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... beside him. Ten paces away the light of the binnacle was burning, and by it I saw two men lying huddled on the deck, and the ship's wheel whirling backwards and forwards as the waves ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... the runners clash with the rocks, and I see Dr. Hingston's lantern (he always would have a lantern), bobbing about like the binnacle light of an oyster sloop, very loose in a choppy sea. Therefore I do not laugh the winds to scorn as much ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... which was decorated with wondrous richness. In the centre stood a cabin, its entablature surmounted with a row of uraeus-snakes, the angles squared to the shape of pillars, and the walls adorned with designs. A binnacle with pointed roof stood on the poop, and was matched at the other end by a sort of altar enriched with paintings. The rudder consisted of two huge sweeps, ending in heads of Hathor, that were fastened with long strips of stuff and worked upon hollow posts. On the mast shivered—for the east ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... fit, sir—to use his own expression. He is burning to have at somebody. His eyes work about like the binnacle's card." ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... over, the seas they press in From fo'csle to binnacle streaming; And a ripple runs over the Admiral's deck, ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... from its case in front of the wooden binnacle-box and squinted long at the edge of the creek. Crude though the glass was, he was enabled to discern that the object was, in truth, a log, but evidently hollowed out. Rounded at the ends, it held two men whose figures so blended into ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... sumptuous barrel [Footnote: The cask in question was bought in order to be rigged up eventually into a crow's-nest, as soon as we should again find ourselves among the ice.] which I have had fitted up for her reception abaft the binnacle. A spacious meadow of sweet-scented hay has been laid down in a neighbouring corner for her further accommodation; and the Doctor is tuning up his flageolet, in order to complete the bucolic character of the scene. The only personage ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... sails. The master leaned against a gun-carriage, and gradually sunk down on it, resting his head on his hands. The helmsman stood at his post, now gazing at the broad spread of canvas above him, and then mechanically at the compass, with its light shining in the binnacle before him, but looking neither to the right hand nor to the left. The rest of the watch placed themselves at their ease between the guns, and were soon, whatever might have been their intention, fast asleep. One by one others ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... soon afterwards. It is a great improvement on the older instrument, being steadier, less hampered by friction, and the deviation due to the ship's own magnetism can be corrected by movable masses of iron at the binnacle. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... school when Paul and Philip were small boys, and Paul used to think that she wanted to pick him to pieces, her fingers were so long and bony. She knew pretty much all that was going on in the village, for she visited somewhere every afternoon to find out what had happened. Captain Binnacle called her the ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... the paddle wheels began to turn; and La Luz, long, low, narrow, and a racer, moved noiselessly out into the bay. A few yards only, and the loungers on the wharf could neither see nor hear her. Except for the muffled binnacle light, there was neither a ray nor a spark. The anthracite gave almost no smoke. The hull, hardly three feet above water amidships, was "Union color," and invisible at night. The waves slipped over her like oil, without the sound of a splash, almost without breaking. She glided along more and more ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... had hardly been extinguished in cabin and binnacle, when we heard the measured stroke of a man-of-war oar. In a few moments more the boat was alongside, the officer on deck, and a fruitless examination concluded. The blacks beneath the launch were as silent as death; nothing was found to render the "Maria" suspicious; and we were dismissed with ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... four years have elapsed since then, he is still on board of her. There stands he by the binnacle. No more a boy, but a young man, and in a garb that bespeaks him of the quarter-deck—not before the mast, for he is now the Calypso's third officer. And her second is not far-off; he is the generous ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... that a man may have no prick of conscience and yet have done a very wrong thing. So we want, as it seems to me, something outside of ourselves that shall not be affected by our variations. Conscience is like the light on the binnacle of a ship. It tosses up and down along with the vessel. We want a steady light yonder on that headland, on the fixed solid earth, which shall not heave with the heaving wave, nor vary at all. Conscience speaks lowest when it ought to speak loudest. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... poop, to bring the ship aft, and, weighing it down, send the water to the pumps. This the captain was very willing to do; and so, at two o'clock in the afternoon the signal was given, by the firing of the gun, whose report tore and broke down all the binnacle and compasses. ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... brought the irksomeness of our situation to a climax, and P—— made up his mind to call on the Consul in the morning. For my part, I believe, I became feverish through the night, and in my sleep talked to the binnacle about Magna Charta. ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... ship-breakers' lumber, accumulated in the other parts of the vessel. Here, the one object that rose visible on the smooth surface of the deck was the low wooden structure which held the cabin door and roofed in the cabin stairs. The wheel-house had been removed, the binnacle had been removed, but the cabin entrance, and all that had belonged to it, had been left untouched. The scuttle was on, and ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... a pilot to know exactly how a ship's head is; and the men at the helm, although good seamen and steering well, are not so ready at answering as a pilot wishes, and very often stammer at it—sometimes make mistakes. Now, you see, when I'm piloting a vessel, if you stand at the binnacle, watch the compass, and answer me quickly how the ship's head is, you'll be of use to me in a very short time. Go up into my room, and under the bed you will find a compass; bring it down carefully, and I'll give you a lesson ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... her beside him during the coming struggle the strength of a god rose within him. "Come," he answered, briefly, and moved with her to the helm which a sailor silently surrendered to him whilst she steadied herself by holding to the binnacle—the only place on board at that time where (from sheer necessity) any light had been allowed to remain. It was faint enough, but the reflection from the compass-board, as he bent to examine it, was ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... what kind of wine we preferred I must say I was struck all in a heap, for wines to Jone and me is like a trackless wilderness without compass or binnacle light, and we seldom drink them except made hot, with nutmeg grated in, for colic; but as I wanted her to understand that if there was any luxuries we didn't order it was because we didn't approve of them, I told her that we was total abstainers, and at that she smiled very pleasant ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... through these dark waters, and this impenetrable, and seemingly boundless, gloom? The eye rests on the light in the binnacle. We stoop to examine the compass; the card marks S.S.E. Imagination expands the dark horizon. It is not boundless: the island mountain-tops loom in the distance. They beckon us on; we realise them now; at dawn the grey peaks of Cape Corso will be unveiled; ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... night as I lay under my blanket in the cockpit, courting sleep, I had a comic seizure. There was nothing visible but the southern stars, and the steersman there out by the binnacle lamp; we were all looking forward to a most deplorable landfall on the morrow, praying God we should fetch a tuft of palms which are to indicate the Dangerous Archipelago; the night was as warm as milk, and ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little craft was trim and plain, the only ornament in sight being some brass work that surrounded the binnacle. It was clear that it had been built with an eye to ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... Blowhard," called out Captain Bilge, stepping out of the binnacle and shaking hands across ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... years before; that is to say if he had been baptised at all. He stood so motionless at the helm, that you might have imagined him to have been frozen there as he stood, were it not that his eyes occasionally wandered from the compass on the binnacle to the bows of the vessel, and that the breath from his mouth, when it was thrown out into the clear frosty air, formed a smoke like to that from the spout of ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to darken the decks. The running lights of red and green were still in the lamp room, and, except for a soft, rosy glow from the binnacle-bowl, there was a blackness of night throughout the upper part of the ship. Cigars and pipes and cigarettes had been tabooed, and doors were opened in the deck houses only after the inside lights had been lowered to a flickering ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... country he was a magistrate, and an active visitor and speaker among those destitute of religious instruction. He was said to be paying his addresses to Lady Jane Sheepshanks, Lord Southdown's third daughter, and whose sister, Lady Emily, wrote those sweet tracts, "The Sailor's True Binnacle," and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a sailing ship at that," Zircon boomed. "We identified what was almost certainly a compass binnacle, probably brass, but there wasn't time to get it free and bring it up. Scotty found what is probably the muzzle of a ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... no time to be lost, and the only chance of escape remained with the boat, Newton commenced his arrangements. The mast and sails were found, and the latter bent;—a keg was filled with water,—a compass taken out of the binnacle,—a few pieces of beef, and some bread, collected in a bag and thrown in. He also procured some bottles of wine and cider from the cabin: these he stowed away carefully in the little locker, which was fitted under the stern-sheets of the boat. In an hour everything was ready; and throwing into ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... a watch at the second mate's door, went upon deck to light another lamp at the binnacle, it having been again accidentally extinguished. He was there asked by his terrified brother, whose agony of mind we will not attempt to portray, if he intended to hurt Smith, the other boat-steerer. He replied that he ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... electric illumination of the hold, the blackness was positive, with the palpable quality of an element, relieved alone by the dull glow of the binnacle housing the gyroscope telltale, from which the faintest of golden reflections struck back to pick out a pair of seemingly severed fists gripping the handles of the bridge steering wheel with a singular effect ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... then," said the Surly god; "and if they are too lazy, which I dare say they are, send for a boatswain's mate from the Royal Billy—he'd sarve her out, I warrant you; and, for half a gallon of rum, would teach the yeomen of the guard to dance the binnacle hornpipe into ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sailing-master shouted to Chris at eleven o'clock. "Too much canvas! Got to get two more reefs into that mainsail, and got to do it right away!" He glanced at the old captain, shivering in oilskins at the binnacle and holding on for dear life. "There's only you and I, Chris—and the cook; but he's ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... realized only by those who have experienced it. Except on Morro Castle at Havana there were no lights on the northern coast of Cuba; if it was cloudy and there happened to be no moon, the darkness was impenetrable; the war-ships did not allow even so much as the glimmer of a binnacle lamp to escape from their lead-colored, almost invisible hulls, as they cruised noiselessly back and forth; and the correspondent on the despatch-boat not only did not know where they were, but had no means whatever of ascertaining ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... with the top of the tide, we could look down on the plan of a deck beneath, with its appurtenances and junk, casks, houses, pumps, and winches, rope and spare spars, binnacle and wheel, perhaps a boat, the regular deck seams curving and persisting under all. An old collier ketch she might be, with a name perhaps as romantic as the Mary Ann; for the owners of these little vessels delight to honour ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... much to that Dillon, sir," returned the anxious boy, in a whisper; "if you had seen his face, as I did, when the binnacle light fell upon it, as he came up the cabin ladder, you would put ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... carried no light, and that even the binnacle was carefully shaded so that its light could not be seen except by the helmsman. At midnight his watch went on deck, and Ralph perceived that while he had been below the sail had again been greatly reduced, and noticed that from ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... this channel at least half a dozen times in the Bellevite, and knew all the courses and bearings, though the latter did not count in the dense fog which had settled down on the vicinity of the fort. The lights in the binnacle of the West Wind had not been put out, though they could not be noticed outside of the schooner. The great fortress could not be seen, and it was ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... sallies, he was quick to take his cue when she expressed curiosity concerning the duties of the officer of the watch. And coming up at about two bells for a turn round the deck and a few breaths of fresh air before dressing for dinner, Lanyard saw them on the bridge, their heads together over the binnacle—to the open disgust of the man at ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... the wind. I looked aft; the wheel was deserted—at least I believed so, till on rushing to it, meanwhile shouting to the watch on deck, I spied the figure of the helmsman on his face close beside the binnacle. ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... the binnacle, and the light of its lamp fell on a stamped envelope which he took out of his breast-pocket from time to time that he might read the inscription. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Impartial Examination with the Original Documents herein set out and now for the first time deciphered by a Member of the Society of Antiquarians. Dedicated to All Lovers of the Truth. Printed by the Ballybun Binnacle Press." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... went the wave, Fear quitted the most finical; The Saints, I wot, were soon forgot, And Hope was at the pinnacle: When rose on high a frightful cry— "The Devil's in the binnacle!" ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... faintly twinkling lights. Lights and water drew backward, as the rotary motion gave way to a southern course. The Master slowed the helicopters. A glance at the altimeter showed him 1,965 feet. The compass in its binnacle gave him direction. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... surprise me if we had to double-reef topsails afore mornin'. Tell you what it is, Mr. Higgins, there's that ar north star with a towel over her face again. Sink me if there'll be any lunar took to-night." The captain shook his head, gave his Panama a tip, and walking aft, stood beside the binnacle watching the compasses for several minutes. Then returning to where the officer of ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... structure—the indicators, telegraph-dials, telephones, push-buttons, and speaking-tubes, which communicated with gun-stations, turrets, steering-room, engine-rooms, and all parts of the ship where men were stationed. In the forward part was a binnacle with small steering-wheel, disconnected now, for the steering was done by men below the water-line in the stern. A spiral staircase led to the main-deck below, and another to the first fighting-top ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... inertion, but with all our mental faculties in rapid and painful activity—with the waves lashing furiously against the sides of our devoted ship, as if in anger with the hostile element for not more speedily performing its office of destruction,—the binnacle, by one of those many lurches which were driving everything movable from side to side of the vessel, was suddenly wrenched from its fastenings, and all the apparatus of the compass dashed to pieces upon the deck; on which one of the young mates, emphatically regarding it for a moment, cried ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... minor to reflect God's dream of a world. She turned, and saw Malcolm at the tiller, and the cloudy wrath sprang upon her. He stood composed and clear and cool as the morning, without sign of doubt or conscience of wrong, now peeping into the binnacle, now glancing at the sunny sails, where swayed across and back the dark shadows of the rigging, as the cutter leaned and rose, like a child running and staggering over the multitudinous and unstable hillocks. She turned ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... gone below, Jenny had given proofs that she was in an extra good temper, for being a little way behind Bombazo—as if impelled by some sudden and joyous impulse—she lifted that everlasting umbrella and hit him a friendly thwack that could be heard from bowsprit to binnacle. ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... doubt; but the prospect of laying hands on so much wealth made them absurdly foolhardy, and, at the same time, extremely anxious. The old major of the battalion, a stupid, suspicious man, who had never been afloat in his life, distinguished himself by putting out suddenly the binnacle light, the only one allowed on board for the necessities of navigation. He could not understand of what use it could be for finding the way. To the vehement protestations of the ship's captain, he stamped his foot and tapped the handle of his sword. "Aha! I have unmasked you," ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... whether the severe tenue du bord requires that the seaman should be always furnished with those ferocious weapons, which in sundry maritime manoeuvers, such as going to sleep in your hammock for instance, or twinkling a binnacle, or luffing a marlinspike, or keelhauling a maintopgallant (all naval operations, my dear, which any seafaring novelist will explain to you)—I doubt, I say, whether these weapons are ALWAYS worn by sailors, and ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... of sand was that favored land, And trimmed with cinnamon straws; And pink and blue was the pleasing hue Of the Tickletoeteaser's claws. And we sat on the edge of a sandy ledge And shot at the whistling bee; And the Binnacle-bats wore water-proof hats As they danced in the ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... that he imagined he had almost demeaned himself by his condescension in throwing down the rope in answer to my despairing cries. On the other hand, the helmsman, the only other person aft, was so astounded as to become quite speechless. I could see, in the light of the binnacle thrown upon his face, his staring eyes ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer |
