"Mast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flies to arms in defence of Christianity; fights for it; conquers for it; and takes the market as a reward from heaven. In defence of his island shores, he puts a chaplain on board his ship; nails a flag with a cross on it to his top-gallant mast; and sails to the ends of the earth, sinking, burning and destroying all who dispute the empire of the seas with him. He boasts that a slave is free the moment his foot touches British soil; and he sells the children of his poor at six ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... yield. Just then some one looked seaward, and there they see ships coming from the south round the Ness, and they were not fewer than ten, and they row hard and steer thitherwards. Along their sides were shield on shield, but on that ship that came first stood a man by the mast, who was clad in a silken kirtle, and had a gilded helm, and his hair was both fair and thick; that man had a spear inlaid ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... a distance the cabins, covered over with the silk of the balloon part, looked like a gipsy's tent on a rather exceptional scale, and all the available hands were busy in building out of the steel of the framework a mast from which the Vaterland's electricians might hang the long conductors of the apparatus for wireless telegraphy that was to link the Prince to the world again. There were times when it seemed they would never rig that mast. From the outset the party suffered ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... After the bard, sprung from the Gods, had seated himself in this place, and touched his tuneful strings, a shade came over the spot. The tree of Chaonia[10] was not absent, nor the grove of the Heliades,[11] nor the mast-tree with its lofty branches, nor the tender lime-trees, nor yet the beech, and the virgin laurel,[12] and the brittle hazels, and the oak, adapted for making spears, and the fir without knots, and the holm bending beneath its acorns, and the genial plane-tree,[13] and the parti-coloured ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... you see, and I fancied he could understand what I said, and I was sure he was very fond of me. I would rather have done anything than kill him, still I was getting very faint and weak, and I could scarcely crawl from the stern to the mast to lower the sail when I wanted to get to sleep. At last I had but a pint of water remaining and only a yam or two. I steered on as long as I could, when I felt my head bending down to my breast. I knew that I could not keep awake many minutes longer, so I lowered my sail and ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... steering pretty far to westward, we luckily caught the trade-wind, and rounded the Cape in a good gale on the 15th of January. And here it came on to blow right earnestly; but we kept the gale for about eight days on our larboard quarter, and we scudded on our course at a fearful rate. Our mizen mast was carried away—both our mainsails split—and we smashed a few spars, and lost some running gear; nothing more serious happened, save the loss of as fine a young fellow as ever trode shoe-leather—a seaman. He was caught sharply by one of the ropes that gave way, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... sat in either end of a flat-bottomed boat. There was a mast, and the boat was fitted for two oarsmen as well. Evidently the load was heavy, for it was well down in the water. The sail cloth was spread over all the boat, excepting one end where there was a small sheet-iron stove, with a pan of glowing wood coal underneath. ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... was not suffered to do any thing; the captain ordered that I should be bound to the mast; and, when at last the flames were extinguished, the passengers, with one accord, besought him to keep me bound hand and foot, lest I should be the cause of some new disaster. All that had happened was, indeed, occasioned by my ill luck. I had laid my pipe down, when I was falling ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... ripening for pension on the shelf of General Duty is an object at once pitiful and ludicrous. His profession has ebbed away from him, and he lies a melancholy derelict on the shore, with sails flapping idly against the mast and meaningless pennants streaming in ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... rot in the rocking dark, I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother shark; I had lapped him round with cocoa husk, and drenched him with the oil, And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze above my spoil; I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side, and tasselled his beard i' the mesh, And spitted his crew on the live bamboo that grows through the gangrened flesh; I had hove him down by the mangroves ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... for his work." Right up to the eve of the final assault, Heke attended the church services devoutly, and in planning this assault he betook himself to his Bible. A strong force of military was now protecting the mast, but Heke took his tactics from those of Joshua at Ai. While his ally, Kawiti, engaged the British soldiers and marines at the opposite end of the beach, Heke himself and his party lay in ambush below the block-house. The stratagem was successful: ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... steal a look upon her) I rose, and creeping to the great mast, edged myself into the shadow and so beheld one that crouched there already, and knew him for that same red-headed fellow I had belaboured with the rope's-end. He was staring up at the quarter-deck and, following ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... had been held for Stephen Marshall many days, the university had been draped in black, with its flag at half-mast, the proper time, and its mourning folded away, ere Paul Courtland was able to return to his room and ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... sea!' exclaimed father, 'yes, be a poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some fever ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... counsel—"Fling back your hair, It hides your shoulder." "Don't sing so fast!" "Darling, don't look at that fair young man, Try that old fellow there by the mast, His arms are jewelled"—let it go! Too bitter all this for an idle rhyme; But sirens are kin of the gods, be sure, And change but little ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... and if a similar position were open he could, of course, give references as to his character—a question the agent asked him—but, then, Gilbert had a father to help him. Should no such position be available, he would ship before the mast, or serve as cook or cabin-boy, or even scullion—but he would not live another day or hour dependent on his dear Uncle George, who had impoverished himself in ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... this night as on the former occasion, a brilliant moonlight; and the vessel had no lamps up to hinder its power. The mast and sails and lines stood out in sharp light and shadow. The man at the helm Elizabeth could not see; the moonlight poured down upon Winthrop, walking slowly back and forth on the deck, his face and figure at every turn given fully and clearly ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... no time in obtaining a writ of habeas corpus. The ship in the meantime had sailed from Gravesend, but the officer with the writ was able to board her in the Downs. There he saw the negro chained to the mast. The captain was at first furious, and determined to resist; but he knew the danger of deforcing an officer with, such a writ as a habeas corpus, and found it necessary to yield. The writ came up before Lord Mansfield. He did not go into the general ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... great tub once more, to float the walnut- shell boats, with their burning candles fixed in each. As the girls took their pairs of shells, one with a pink, the other with a blue candle placed in the middle like a mast, it was curious to see the difference in their ways of launching them on this mimic ocean of life. Jean and Jessie dropped theirs in thoughtlessly, only intent on the fun of the moment. Florence put hers in daintily and with care not to wet her fingers, and Molly and Katharine ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... swept down its thousands—the gallant vessel that was a moment before spreading proudly its white wings to the gale, the joyous hearts on board dreaming of hearth and home, and the "many ports that would exult in the gleam of her mast"—the next! hurrying down to the depths of an ocean grave, with no survivor to tell the tale!—or the terrible records of War—the ranks of bold and brave laid low in the carnage of battle—youth and strength ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... is a raft of reeds or bamboo; on which is erected an apparatus not unlike the mast and yard of a square-rigged ship. To one end of the yard is attached a net which may be raised from and lowered into the water. This contrivance is called by the natives timba. See full description ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... notice. She had picked up a small flat piece of wood, which happened to have in it a little hole that had evidently suggested to her the idea of sticking in another fragment that might figure as a mast and make the thing a boat. This second morsel, as I watched her, she was very markedly and intently attempting to tighten in its place. My apprehension of what she was doing sustained me so that after some seconds I felt I was ready for more. Then I again ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... by fertility of genius, maintained a sanguinary contest against two ships, one of them superior to his own, and under other severe disadvantages, 'til humanity tore down the colors which valor had nailed to the mast. This officer and his brave comrades have added much to the rising glory of the American flag, and have merited all the effusions of gratitude which their country is ever ready to bestow on the champions of its rights and of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Madison • James Madison
... before the mast and sailed for the Japanese coast on a seal-hunting expedition, later going to Behring Sea. After sealing for seven months I came back to California and took odd jobs at coal shovelling and longshoring and also in a jute factory, where I worked ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... battle between ships and galleys that the ships are victorious by reason of the high of heir tops, you must haul the yard up almost to the top of the mast, and at the extremity of the yard, that is the end which is turned towards the enemy, have a small cage fastened, wrapped up below and all round in a great mattress full of cotton so that it may not be injured by the bombs; then, with the capstan, haul down the opposite end ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... The full moon, slightly tinged with red, which discloses the undulations of the hills, resembles the bloody buckler of Achilles; no light is to be seen on the coast, but a distant twinkling, lighted by the shepherds on Mount Ida—not a sound is to be heard but the flapping of the sail on the mast, and the slight creaking of the mast itself; all seems dead like the past in that deserted land. Seated on the forecastle, I see that shore, those mountains, those ruins, those tombs, rise like the ghost of the departed world, reappear from the bosom of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... descried several Spanish caracks to leeward, to which they signalled, and having joined company sailed on together. All the vessels carried bombards and cannons, yet within a week the whole of them, save one, had struck their colours, and nailed to the mast of each was the flag of the capturing enemy, who belonged to the sahibs' nation. The single vessel not taken was the galleon which Jose commanded, and after it, as it fled through the waves with every stitch of canvas spread, went one of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... melancholy task of burying our dead was performed, both vessels being hove to, with their colours' hoisted half- mast high, during the ceremony; and I think it was a very great relief to all hands when, the poor fellows—ten in all, including O'Flaherty— having been consigned with all solemnity to their last resting-place beneath the heaving billow, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... with the blast, Devours its father tree, And sheds its leaves and drops its mast, That more ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... a man to take the helm," shouted Sir Patrick hoarsely, "while I climb to the top of the mast, and try if ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... finger of a drowned man on his parlour mantelshelf, with other maritime and natural curiosities. He displayed also a brass knocker, a brass plate, and a brass bell-handle, all very bright and shining; and had a mast, with a vane on the top of it, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... companionship. Jack rabbits sitting up on their hind legs for a brief scrutiny before they scurried away made her laugh to herself. The reddened clouds that rimmed the purple were the radiant shores of a wonderful, bottomless sea, where the stars were the mast lights on ships hull down in the distance. She lifted her chest and drew in long breaths of clean, sweet air that is like no other air, and she remembered all at once that she had not coughed since daylight. She breathed again, deep and long, and felt that she was drawing some ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... just as he was rowed off he heard the cries of the ladies who were left behind, and caused the oarsmen to turn back for them. So many drowning wretches crowded into it, as soon as it came near, that it sank with their weight, and all were lost. Only the top-mast of the ship remained above water, and to it clung a butcher and the owner of the ship all night long. When daylight came, and the owner knew that the king's son was really dead, and by his fault, he lost heart, let go the mast and was drowned. ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it exposed the Phoenicians to the danger of reprisals, and made them objects of an undying hatred. When on these distant expeditions they were subject to trivial disasters which might lead to serious consequences. A mast might break, an oar might damage a portion of the bulwarks, a storm might force them to throw overboard part of their cargo or their provisions; in such predicaments they had no means of repairing the damage, and, unable to obtain help in any of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and pray together, talk and walk together. From present appearances we shall feel towards each other as David and Jonathan did." Mr. Collins was a man of intense missionary convictions, who declared if there were no means to send him to China he would find his way before the mast, and work ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... wet sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast, And fills the white and rustling sail, And bends the gallant mast; And bends the gallant mast, my boys, While, like the eagle free, Away the good ship flies, and leaves Old ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... nut trees, and to sink wells for the use of ships. There are people at Oman who cross to these islands that produce the cocoa nut trees, of planks made from which they build ships, sewing the planks with yarns made from the bark of the tree. The mast is made of the same wood, the sails are formed from the leaves, and the bark is worked up into cordage: and having thus completed their vessel, they load her with cocoa nuts, which they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... left this block-house on our left, and, striking the Zem, we drove along it till we reached a solitary house. A few hundred yards further down was a Turkish fort, with the banner of the Star and Crescent hanging lazily at the mast. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... blast, The shatter'd mast, The syrt, the whirlpool, and the rock, The breaking spout, The stars gone out, The boiling streight, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... by the gurgle of a rope through a well-greased sheave and the square lug, which had been the joy of little Sep Marvin at Farlingford, crept up to the truck of the stubby mast. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... pronounced views on the subject of human rights—very different views from those held by the royal Georges of England. When Henry George was sixteen, the restlessness of coming manhood found expression, and he shipped before the mast and sailed away to the Antipodes. The boy had the small, compact form, the physical activity and the daring which make a first-class sailor, but happily his brain was too full of ideas to transform him into a dog ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... lingered long at that noon meal,—fifteen minutes, at the very least; for you hospitably said that you did not have these little social festivals very often,—owing to frequent illness in the family, and other causes,—and mast make ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... now sage Ulysses rode; Beneath the deck the destined victims stow'd: The sails they furl'd, they lash the mast aside, And dropp'd their anchors, and the pinnace tied. Next on the shore their hecatomb they land; Chryseis last descending on the strand. Her, thus returning from the furrow'd main, Ulysses led to Phoebus' sacred fane; Where at his ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... vigorously that on the third day the goods were carefully piled on the upper deck, secured in place, and with their long poles they pushed out from the shore on the voyage of twenty-eight miles to the foot of the sheet of water. They were provided with a sturdy mast reared near the middle of the craft, but they did not erect a sail, for the reason that the strong wind which was blowing was almost directly from the north, and would ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... some one of the sailors to mistake you for a mast and hang a sail on you any minute, String," said Pop Sanders slyly, at the ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... square question, and I had to tell 'em. Well, I met him that afternoon on Sacramento Street, as white as a sheet, and he would n't speak to me, but passed right by, and that night he went and shipped before the mast. That's the last I ever heard of him; but I had to do it. Now," he added, "this man 's been good to you; but the case is proved, and you ought to vote ...
— Eli - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... vessel Dolphin, bound from Jamaica for London, which had already doubled the southern point of the Island of Cuba, favored by the wind, when one afternoon, I suddenly observed a very suspicious-looking schooner bearing down upon us from the coast. I climbed the mast, with my spy glass, and became convinced that it was a pirate. I directed the captain, who was taking his siesta, to be awaked instantly, showed him the craft, and advised him to alter our course, that we ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... up into his face, and it had never seemed so dear to me. "The time for that is past," I said, my tone as calm and even as his own. "A man like you cannot burden himself with a derelict like me—mast gone, sails gone, water-logged, drifting. Five years from now you'll thank me for what I am saying now. My place is with this other wreck—tossed about by wind and weather until we both go down together." ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... feelings of a mother are among the simple, natural, fruitful, and inexhaustible things of life. I can recall the day, now nearly fourteen years ago, when I embarked on a life of self-sacrifice with the despair of a shipwrecked mariner clinging to the mast of his vessel; now, as I invoke the memory of past years, I feel that I would make the same choice again. No other guiding principle is so safe, or leads to such rich reward. The spectacle of your ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... ... is now reduced to a very miserable Condicon by a continuall course of misfortune. In Aprill ... we had a most prodigeous Storme of haile, many of them as bigg as Turkey Eggs, which destroyed most of our younge Mast and Cattell. On the fifth of June following came the Dutch upon us, and did soe much mischiefe that we shall never recover our reputations.... They were not gone before it fell to raineing and continued for 40 dayes together, which Spoiled much of what the haile had left ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... the tracks of the havilinas. Supposing they were either antelope or deer tracks, they followed them into the grove, where they discovered the herd of hogs, quietly feeding upon the mast with which the ground was ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... mast as a tower goes past, and sail by sail as a cloud's wing spread; Fleet by fleet, as the throngs whose feet keep time with death in his dance of dread; Galleons dark as the helmsman's bark of old that ferried to hell ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... bellying with the wind Drop suddenly collaps'd, if the mast split; So to the ground down dropp'd the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... the terrible bar of Findhorn. And shortly after, the poor Friendship took the ground right on the edge of the quicksands, for she would neither stay nor wear; and as she beat hard against the bottom, the surf came rolling over half-mast high. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... the last offices were performed in the most scrupulously private manner, the feelings of the community could not be repressed. From nine till eleven o'clock that day all the British shipping in the docks and the river, from London Bridge to Gravesend, hoisted their flags half-mast high, and minute guns were fired from appointed stations along the Thames. The same mournful ceremony was observed in all the ports of England and Ireland; and not only in these, for the flag was half-mast high on every ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... before their comrades were even aware of the direction from which the messengers of death came. The Macleods endeavoured to answer their arrows, but not being able to see the foe, their efforts were of no effect. In the heat of the fight one of the Macleods climbed up the mast of the birlinn to discover the position of the enemy. Ian Odhar observing this, took deadly aim at him when near the top of the mast. "Oh," says Donald, addressing John, "you have sent a pin through his broth." ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... rage and indignation, exclaimed, "D— my heart and liver! 'tis a land lie, d'ye see; and I will maintain it to be a lie, from the sprit-sail yard to the mizen-top-sail haulyards! Blood and thunder! Will. Bower a peer of this realm! a fellow of yesterday, that scarce knows a mast from a manger! a snotty-nose boy, whom I myself have ordered to the gun, for stealing eggs out of the hen-coops! and I, Hawser Trunnion, who commanded a ship before he could keep a reckoning, am laid aside, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the mast her holy flag; Set every threadbare sail; And give her to the God of Storms, The lightning ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... extremity, no wreck yet known to ocean could be so hopeless as this. Solid iron from keelson to turret-top, clinging to anything for safety, if the Monitor should go down, would only insure a share in her fate. No mast, no spar, no floating thing, to meet the outstretched hand in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... do his desires avail? For He must never handle sail; Nor mount the mast, nor row, nor float In sailor's ship, or fisher's boat, Upon the rocking ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... into a little ship going to England. They knew that they could get home from England. But the ship stopped at another Green-land town. While they were there, a steamer was seen. It came nearer. They could see the stars and stripes flying from her mast. It was an American steamer sent to ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... for some time been patrolling the North Sea. Soon after 6 o'clock in the morning the Aboukir suddenly felt a shock on the port side. A dull explosion was heard and a column of water was thrown up mast high. The explosion wrecked the stokehold just forward of amidships: and ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... it was as she had said, though I am sure none of us would ever have thought of it if God had not given her the idea. We soon set to work and got the shell ready. The rain storm came quickly. We had turned the boat over, the oars had been washed away, but the mast and sail were lashed to the thwarts. We made a little hollow in the sand and stretched out the sail, and by the time this was done and the men were ready with the turtle-shell the rain came. When it rains in those parts it comes down in bucketfuls, ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... war mare mast chart damp warp share cask lard hand warm spare mask arm land ward snare past yard sand warn game scar lake waft fray lame spar dale raft play name star gale chaff gray fame garb cape aft stay ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... and retarded his movements to protect them. The English fleet was superior to the French in vessels and weight of metal; the fight lasted ten hours; the French squadron was broken, disorder ensued in the manoeuvres; the captains got killed one after another, nailing their colors to the mast or letting their vessels sink rather than strike; the flag-ship, the Ville de Paris, was attacked by seven of the enemy's ships at once, her consorts could not get at her; Count de Grasse, maddened with grief and rage, saw all his crew falling around him. "The admiral is six foot every day," ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... permitted above decks to help the English sailors launch the Churchill from her skids. The Frenchman waited till six of the English were up the masts. Then, seizing an ax, he brained two sailors near by, opened the hatches, called up his comrades, and, keeping the other Englishmen up the mast poles at pistol point, steered the vessel across to d'Iberville ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... built in the same form and from a common model. They carry a mast and sail, although for the greater part of their journeys they are towed by their owners, or rather by the familles, wife and children, of the owner. Mynheer, the barge-owner, is usually to be seen smoking his pipe and taking ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... commander of the Andalusian squadron, having got his galleon into collision with two or three Spanish ships successively, had at last carried away his foremast close to the deck, and the wreck had fallen against his main-mast. He lay crippled and helpless, the Armada was slowly deserting him, night was coming on, the sea was running high, and the English, ever hovering near, were ready to grapple with him. In vain did Don Pedro fire signals of distress. The captain-general—even ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... saw. About eleven o'clock there was a little rain, and it grew dark. Between one and two he was obliged to light a large candle to steer by.... Between nine and ten at night, he ordered his men to take in some of the sails, but it was so dark that they could not find the way from one mast to ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... Admiral said: 'Oh! deaf and dumb is he? Lash him to the mast and give him a taste of the cat-o'-nine-tails. I don't know anything better than that for curing ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... sullenly-thudding power, put in her bosom by the unartistic beast, man, to make her grind her breathless way whither he would, and whither she would not? Not the meanest mud-scow or harbour tug but would rather have a little mast and a bit of canvas in the fresh salt breeze than all the hundreds of land-born horse-powers and fire-driven cranks and rods that a haste-loving generation can cram into the belly of the poor craft. How much more, then, must the beautiful ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... were to be guessed at, for not a port-hole cast its cylinder of radiance on the water. Night muffled their hulls, and their safety lights hung in a scattered constellation. In one place two lanterns hung on one mast. ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... her work in the kitchen, and sat down beside the library table. Her coming operated a total diversion, in which Hilbrook lapsed into his apathy, and was not to be roused from it by the overtures to conversation which she made. He presently got to his feet and said he mast be going, against all her protests that it was very early. Ewbert wished to walk home with him; but Hilbrook would not suffer this, and the minister had to come back from following him to the gate, and watching his figure lose itself in the dark, ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... noon suddenly taken with most violent squall at West...this hurricane of wind increased so rapidly and with such fury that we were obliged to let go the best bower and till all 3 anchors bore the strain she dragged a little, struck top-gallant-mast. This squall continued for 4 hours, then settled into a westerly gale with constant thunder and lightning and at intervals very hard rain and also more sea than I supposed possible in this cove. At 11 P.M. parted our warp, my uneasiness at this was not a little however the S.B.* (* Small ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... maxims of the Roman people or his own principles; after saying which, he dismissed the ambassadors and prepared for war. When Hannibal was now drawing near land, one of the sailors, who was ordered to climb the mast to see what part of the country they were making, said the prow pointed toward a demolished sepulchre, when Hannibal, recognising the inauspicious omen, ordered the pilot to steer by that place, and putting in his fleet at Leptis, landed his ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... iron, to be wafted on to the Gulf Stream, there to come under a warmer influence. This Arctic scene causes our captain and his officers to look rather serious, and they mount at times to the fore-topgallant mast. Did we but know the dangers which beset us through yielding to the allurements of the world, how often would we also mount aloft, and get upon, our ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... sacrificed life and hopes to the good of his country, and who deservedly ranks among the truest of those heroes of whom we have well-authenticated legends. She had been launched at the commencement of the summer, and still bore at the fore-top-mast-head a bunch of evergreens, profusely ornamented with knots and streamers of riband, the offerings of the patron's female friends, and the fancied gage of success. The use of steam, and the presence of unemployed seamen of various ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... me a thing that was hard for you, a ship of gold under a silver mast; twelve towns with a market in all of them, and a fine white court by the ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory
... trees at all, nor does it ever haunt the woods; but the former, as long as it stays with us, from November perhaps to February, lives the same wild life with the ring-dove, Palumbus torquatus; frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly by mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt would be settled with me at once, provided they construct their nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... gave the helm to Camille Brahmin, and fighting his way with his pretty feet against half-real efforts to throw him overboard, clambered forward to the mast, whence a moment later, with the help of the schooner-master's hand, he reached the deck of the larger vessel. The Pique-en-terre turned, and with a little flutter spread her smooth ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... sailing of a few American steamships, however, provided they followed a certain defined route to Falmouth and nowhere else, and provided there were marked "on ship's hull and superstructure three vertical stripes one meter wide, to be painted alternately white and red. Each mast should show a large flag checkered white and red, and the stern the American national flag. Care should be taken that during dark, national flag and painted marks are easily recognizable from a distance, and that the boats are well lighted throughout." Other conditions followed. There might ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... sure there's one right here," said the captain, looking through his glasses. "I can't understand why I can't pick it up. Send one of the boys up the mast to ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... give him nearly a new life if he can be got but once, in a spring time, to look well at the beautiful circlet of white nettle blossom, and work out with his schoolmaster the curves of its petals, and the way it is set on its central mast. So, the principle of chemical equivalents, beautiful as it is, matters far less to a peasant boy, and even to most sons of gentlemen, than their knowing how to find whether the water is wholesome in the back-kitchen cistern, or whether ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... of the lubbers went under. Two o' fever and one o' snake-bite. It licks me what sailors are comin' to in these days. When I was afore the mast we'd ha' been ashamed to die o' a trifle like that. Look at me. I've been down wi' coast fever sixteen times, and I've had yellow jack an' dysentery, an' I've been bit by the black cobra in the Andamans. I've had cholera, too. It broke out in a brig when I ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the remaining dangers. The first of these was the island of the Sirens, who by the marvellous sweetness of their song charmed to their ruin all who passed. Odysseus filled the ears of his crews with wax, bidding them to tie him to the mast of his ship and to row hard past the temptresses in spite of his strugglings. They then entered the dangerous strait, on one side of which was Scylla, a dreadful monster who lived in a cave near by, on the other was the deadly whirlpool ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... of each whose life was to be saved. The yacht was headed in the direction of the object, the boat was quickly lowered, the captain himself, with four sailors, jumping into it, and in another minute they caught in their arms a poor little exhausted and fainting boy as he dropped from the mast of a large sunken ship. We could now distinguish the tops of all the three masts appearing above the waves, for the sea was not deep, and the ship had settled ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Spanish men to their flagship bore him then, Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last, And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace; But he rose upon their decks, and he cried: "I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... began, "that it will be thirty-five years on St. John's day since I fell in love with Claudine. She was a pretty, neat, fascinating girl, with a voice sweeter than honey. She was the most beautiful girl in our part of the country, straight as a mast, supple as a willow, graceful and strong as a racing boat. Her eyes sparkled like old cider; her hair was black, her teeth as white as pearls, and her breath was as fresh as the sea breeze. The misfortune was, that she hadn't a sou, while we were in easy circumstances. Her mother, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... Cirrigrades. Amongst the creatures of this division we meet with some very interesting locomotive apparatus. There are some of them by no means obliged to trust to their oars alone—they have also sails. The Velella, large fleets of which visit our seas at times, has a plate (the mast) rising from its bluish disk or deck, covered with a delicate membrane (the sail) of snowy whiteness, by means of which it traverses the ocean. This sail, it has been noticed, 'is set at the same angle as the lateen-sail' of the Malays. We cannot ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... to relate. Taking advantage of his enemy's afternoon siesta, the Dutchman had now managed to sneak by him, and had gone out on the bowsprit to fish. When the animal waked and saw the other creature enjoying himself he straddled his chain, leveled his horns, got his hind feet against the mast and laid a course for the offender. The chain was strong, the mast firm, and the ship, as Byron says, "walked the water like a ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... believe in your existence much as I do in Mr. Rochester's. In a believing mood I don't doubt either of them. After I had read it I went on to the top of Mount Victoria and looked for a ship to carry a letter to you. There was a little thing with one mast, and also H.M.S. Fly, and nothing else. If a cattle vessel came from Sydney she would probably return in a few days, and would take a mail, but we have had east wind for a month and ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... the same frame of mind. We were both too proud to ask questions, so we simply stood there and watched—what do you suppose?—a hospital ship! lighted from water line to truck with hundreds of electric lights; strings of them running from mast-head to mast-head and dozens along the sides, fitted with reflectors to throw the light down so as to show the broad green stripe which is prescribed by the Geneva Convention. Then we both laughed. Little did we think then that we would both be coming back to "Blighty" on just such a ship; ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... are seen industriously throwing up the withered leaves in quest of the fallen mast. The rear ranks are continually rising, passing over the main body, and alighting in front, in such rapid succession, that the whole flock seems still on wing. The quantity of ground thus swept is astonishing; and so completely has it been cleared ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... economical, and so little worldly, will do with this new world. The temptations of wealth, the sirens of luxury, the opportunities for amusement and dissipation, are all to the fore in the Germany of to-day as they were certainly not twenty-five years ago. Ulysses, alas, does not bind himself to the mast very tightly as he passes these enchanted isles of modern luxury. "The land of damned professors" has learned its lessons from those same professors so well, that it is now ready to take a postgraduate course ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... married with great eclat, after he had sought in vain, repelled by her high conduct, to make her less than wife. He died soon after, and the Peace of Ryswick compelled her to assume her male attire again and seek employment. She went before the mast in a vessel bound for the West Indies, which was taken by English pirates, with whom she afterwards enjoyed the benefit of a royal proclamation pardoning all pirates who submitted within a limited period. Their money gave out, and they enlisted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... embarked on our return voyage. Raimundo cut two slender poles, one for a mast and the other for a sprit— to these he rigged a sail we had brought in the boat, for we were to return by the open river, and expected a good wind to carry us to Caripi. As soon as we got out of the channel ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... the mast-high run of the seas Of traffic shall hide thee, Never the hell-colored smoke of the factories Hide thee, Never the reek of the time's fen-politics Hide thee, And ever my heart through the night shall with knowledge abide thee, And ever by ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... but to ill luck. Thus, one time she was coming up the harbor of Boston, from a cruise, where she lost spar after spar, and topmast after topmast; and when in full sight or the town, and not much wind, over board went her fore-top-mast, and several men were drowned in their fall from the rigging. This was not attributed to lack of judgment, but to ill luck. When this ill-omened ship lay in Boston harbor, previous to her last and fatal cruise, she could not get men; ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... us no good fortune. The very day after we left Kamtschatka, one of our best sailors fell from the mast-head into the scuttle, and immediately expired. He had climbed thither in safety in the most violent storms, and executed the most difficult tasks with ease; now, in fine weather, on a tranquil sea, he met ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... besotts the soul, that a man that is far gone in Drunkenness, is hardly ever recovered to God. Tell me, when did you see an old drunkard converted? No, no, such an one will sleep till he dies, though he sleeps on the top of a {50c} Mast, let his dangers be never so great and Death and damnation never so near, he will not be awaked out of his sleep. So that if a man have any respect either to Credit, Health, Life or Salvation, he will not ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... which made even the President wince. Remonstrances and protests poured in upon him from every part of the Union. The sailors and shipowners of Portsmouth burned Jay and Grenville in effigy, together with a miniature ship of seventy tons. In Charleston, the flags were put at half-mast and the public hangman burned copies of the treaty in the open street. While remonstrating with a disorderly crowd in Wall Street which was vilifying Jay, Hamilton was stoned and forced to give way with the blood streaming down ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... separation passed, I seemed transported to another world; A thought resigned with pain, when from the mast The impatient mariner the sail unfurled, 355 And, whistling, called the wind that hardly curled The silent sea. From the sweet thoughts of home And from all hope I was for ever hurled. For me—farthest from earthly port to ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... fleet should be scattered. When the fog the next day was dissipated, the Joli was not in sight. Toward evening, however, the ship was again seen. In a few days they discovered an inlet, which La Salle carefully examined from the mast-head. He judged it to be the Bay of Appalachicola, then called Espiritu Santo, on the Florida coast. They therefore pressed on westerly, hoping soon to ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... bait displayed on every side. So thick are the hooks and snares that merely to swim along, intent on his own business, is likely to result sooner or later in his being impaled on some cruel barb. Not enough has been said, either, of the hundreds of American lads who shipped before the mast, made their voyages around Cape Horn and through all the Seven Seas, resisted the temptations of the sailors' quarters in a score of ports, kept themselves clean morally and physically, and came, in time, to the command and even the ownership ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war; A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon like a prison bar, And a huge black hulk that was magnified By its ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... of hogs are bred in the state of Indiana, and are suffered to rove at large in the forests in search of mast. They are in general perfectly wild, and when encountered suddenly bristle up like an enraged porcupine. Their legs are long; bodies thin; and tail lengthy and straight. I was informed that if one of those animals be wounded, its screams ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... them in the stern are groups of knights and attendants, also seated; a little apart stands TRISTAN folding his arms and thoughtfully gazing out to sea; at his feet KURVENAL reclines carelessly. From the mast-head above is once more heard the ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner
... going so soon," he began in a rather tremulous voice. "Do you remember what your uncle was reading the other day about the man who wanted to be lashed to the mast when they passed the Syrens? It would be that way with me if I staid much longer. I—I wouldn't be able to help loving you, and I doubt whether it would be a good thing for either of us. I've tried ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... on the other side. But three hours later, every British flag had been struck, and the land force, seeing their navy defeated, retreated hastily to Canada. So riddled were both squadrons that in neither of them did a mast remain upon which sail could ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... dangerous tempest, When the winds before the blast Surging charged like crested horsemen Over helm, and plank, and mast, He, and all his kin before him, Well have kept the clansman's faith, Serving thee in every danger, Shielding ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... "I hate to go in. I love the water out here, when it's all rough and rock-y. I'd like to keep right on to Cape Cod." She stood in the bow of the boat, with one arm around the mast—it was a catboat—with the breeze fluttering her curly hair about, and her ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... between the rocks, and came upon a purple sea, dark-blue overhead, with large stars leaning to the waves. There was a soft whisperingness in the breath of the breezes that swung there, and many sails of charmed ships were seen in momentary gleams, flapping the mast idly far away. Warm as new milk from the full udders were the waters of that sea, and figures of fair women stretched lengthwise with the current, and lifted a head as they rushed rolling by. Truly it was enchanted even ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... created first, Invented sowing, and the wild plants nurs't: When mast and berries from the trees did drop, Succeeded under by ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... the grove a ship they made, Complete and strong as wise Ur-Hea bade. They fell the pines five gar in length, and hew The timbers square, and soon construct a new And buoyant vessel, firmly fixed the mast, And tackling, sails, and oars make taut and fast. Thus built, toward the sea they push its prow, Equipped complete, provisioned, launch it now. An altar next they raise and thus invoke The gods, their evil-workings ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... as Lennard could see she was neither cruiser nor destroyer nor submarine, but a sort of compound of all three. She did not appear to be a steamer because she had no funnels. She was not exactly a submarine because she had a signal-mast forward and carried five long, ugly-looking guns, three ahead and two astern, of a type that he had never seen before. Forward of the mast there was a conning-tower of oval shape, with the lesser curves fore and aft. ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... communicated to the Government and to the country, and in proper respect to his memory I hereby order that the several Executive Departments be closed to public business and their flags and those of their dependencies throughout the country be displayed at half-mast on the day of ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... close-reefed main topsail and fore staysail. The sea was mountainous and lashing the ship from all directions. Then late in the day, to the dismay of all on board, the lee main topsail-sheet gave way, and the sail was flapping like thunder and lashing the mast and rigging most furiously. The ship, now having nothing to steady her, was helplessly rolling in the trough of the sea, at the mercy of the waves, which threatened to engulf her, as they were breaking on board from every direction. The deck-houses were washed away ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... younger brother of Lieut.-Colonel Brock, and had been in the navy; but it being supposed that he was influential, in the year 1790, in inducing his brother midshipmen, of the fleet at Spithead, to sign a round robin against their being subjected to the practice of mast-heading—one having been hoisted up to the gaff end in an ignominous manner, because he refused to go to the mast head as a punishment—he was recommended privately to retire from the service.[17] Being at ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... when almost the last hope of seeing the lost son again had vanished, Josiah returned and startled his parents by his sudden and unexpected presence. They could scarcely believe their eyes. Twelve years, and hard service before the mast, had wrought a great change in his appearance. He was a youth when he ran away,—he was a man now, toughened by exposure, dark as an Indian, stalwart and rough; but still the eldest son and brother, Josiah Franklin, Jr. They were glad to see him. They rejoiced more over this one returning ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... the ocean, Comrades, still heeding his word of command. There rode in the harbor the prince's ship, ready, With prow curving proudly and shining sails set. Shipward they bore him, their hero beloved; The mighty they laid at the foot of the mast. Treasures were there from far and near gathered, Byrnies of battle, armor and swords; Never a keel sailed out of a harbor So splendidly tricked with the trappings of war. They heaped on his bosom a hoard of bright ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... precepts: if by examples, Whom should he rather strive to imitate Than his own father? be his pattern then, Leave him for a stock of virtue that may last, Should fortune rend his sails, and split his mast. ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... experience in blackbirding before I went pearling in the Paumotus. Otoo and I were on the beach in Samoa—we really were on the beach and hard aground—when my chance came to go as recruiter on a blackbird brig. Otoo signed on before the mast; and for the next half-dozen years, in as many ships, we knocked about the wildest portions of Melanesia. Otoo saw to it that he always pulled stroke-oar in my boat. Our custom in recruiting labor was to land the recruiter on the beach. The covering boat always lay on its oars several ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... was unknown. After half an hour of incessant broadsides, the two vessels had approached each other so close, that the jibboom of the Frenchman was pointed between the fore and main rigging of the Portsmouth. Captain Lumley immediately gave orders to lash the Frenchman's bowsprit to his main-mast, and this was accomplished by the first lieutenant, Alfred, and the seamen, without any serious loss, for the fog was still so thick that the Frenchmen on their forecastle could not perceive what was ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... marched at the head of the brave sons of these counties to Brunswick, and notified the captain of their determination to resist the landing of the stamps. They seized one of the boats of the sloop, hoisted it on a cart, fixed a mast in her, mounted a flag, and marched in triumph to Wilmington. The inhabitants all joined in the procession, and at night the town was illuminated. On the next day, Col. Ashe, at the head of a great concourse of people, proceeded to the Governor's house ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... directed our course down channel with a fresh gale of wind at east. In the afternoon one of the seamen, in furling the main-top-gallant-sail, fell off the yard and was so fortunate as to save himself by catching hold of the main-top-mast-stay in his fall. At night the wind increased to a strong ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... ships was built and ready for sea. The superior seamanship of the Carthaginians was neutralized by converting the decks into a battle-field for soldiers. Each ship was provided with a long boarding-bridge, hinged up against the mast, to be let down on the prow, and fixed to the hostile deck by a long spike, which projected from its end. The bridge was wide enough for two soldiers to pass abreast, and its sides were ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... tame, And Inniscaorach's caves, so wild and dark, I sailed along. The white-faced otter came, And gazed in wonder on my floating bark. The soaring gannet, perched upon my mast, And the proud bird, that flies but o'er the sea, Wheeled o'er my head: and the girrinna passed Upon the branch of some ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... islands are uninhabited, except by the laborers, mostly Indians or poor Chinamen, who are employed in the work of digging, carrying and loading the guano into the ships. When a vessel is ready to take in cargo, she is moored alongside of the rocks almost mast head high, from the top of which the guano is sent down through a canvass shute directly into the hold of the ship. Thus several hundred tons can be put on board in a day. The trimming of the cargo is a very unpleasant part of the labor. The dust and odor is almost overpowering; so the men are ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... hold thirty or forty men, which with infinite labour had been hollowed out of the trunk of a single, huge tree. This canoe differed from the majority of those that personally I have seen used on African lakes and rivers, in that it was fitted for a mast, now unshipped. I looked at it and said it was a fine boat, whereon Komba replied that there were a hundred such at Rica Town, though not all of ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... a wilderness, with boundless forests stretching westward, broken only here and there by the clearings of the pioneers. He was taken from college (Yale) when still a lad, and sent to sea in a merchant vessel, before the mast. Afterward he entered the navy and did duty on the high seas and upon Lake Ontario, then surrounded by virgin forests. He married and resigned his commission in 1811, just before the outbreak of the war with England, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... makin' his will, an' goin' through th' other lagal preliminaries iv th' race. He's built a boat too. Th' King of England was aboord iv her, an' he was near killed, be havin' a mast fall on him. Th' Lord knows how he escaped. A mass iv steel weighin' a hundherd thousan' ton fell on his Majesty an' bounced off. Sir Lipton felt pretty bad about it. He didn't mind losin' a mast or two, but he didn't want annywan to know he had th' king aboord. 'Twud hurt business. ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... his sister for a drive through the town. There for the first time Rena saw great ships, which, her brother told her, sailed across the mighty ocean to distant lands, whose flags he pointed out drooping lazily at the mast-heads. The business portion of the town had "an ancient and fishlike smell," and most of the trade seemed to be in cotton and naval stores and products of the sea. The wharves were piled high with cotton bales, and there were acres of barrels of resin and pitch and tar and ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... possession of the fort despite the siege of twenty days against it by the British; and it had five British standards taken from the enemy. So it improvised a flag and, with cheers and yells befitting the occasion, ran the British standards upside down upon the flag mast and swung the Stars and Stripes above them. The redcoats looked, and, it is safe to assert, laughed not, as to them the humor of the situation was not appealing. But if they were lacking in the sense of humor, these sons of Old England were not lacking in persistence, and ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... lay rotting under a grotesque and dark banian, never more to feel the foot of man upon the deck or to toss upon the sea. A consoling wave lapped the empty pintles and gave the decaying craft a caress by the element whose mistress she so long had been. Her mast was still stepped, but a hundred ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... speech at the beginning of Act ii., "O that my curse had power to wound the starres," &c., in which he compares himself, with epic elaboration, to "an argosie sent rychlye fourthe" and now "meanelye retourninge without mast or helm," to my thinking closely suggests Chapman. It is not quite impossible that the present play may be Chapman's lost "French tragedy" (entered on the Stationers' Registers, June 29, 1660), a copy of which was among the plays destroyed by ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... the ship's propeller ceased to turn and the steamer came up into the wind. The United States destroyer acting as convoy also came to a halt. The French flag on the steamer and the American flag on the destroyer were at half-mast. Thirty-two men from the dead man's company lined up on the after-deck. The coffin (a rough pine box), heavily weighted at one end, lay across the rail over the stern. Here a chute had been rigged ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... first Ralph could not understand what they were about, but he was not long in discovering. The wedges round the mainmast were knocked out, the topmast lowered to the deck, the shrouds and stays slacked off, and then the mast was lifted and carried on board the brig. As soon as this was done, the second mate of the brig with eight sailors went on board as a prize crew. Everything was made taut and trim for them by the brig's crew. The English prisoners had already been ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... sufficient and acceptable to him. He said that from the Hellenes he had received enough, but not from the Eginetans, and from them he demanded the offering of their prize of valour for the sea-fight at Salamis. Hearing this the Eginetans dedicated golden stars, three in number, upon a ship's mast of bronze, which are placed in the corner 87 close ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... dug-out had a religion. That fellow was orthodox. He had no doubt; he was settled in his mind. He did not wish to be insulted. He wanted the bark of his soul to lie at the wharf of orthodoxy, and rot in the sun. He wanted to hear the sails of old opinions flap against the mast of old creeds. He wanted to see the joints in the sides open and gape, as though thirsty for water, and he said: "Now don't disturb my opinions; you'll get my mind unsettled; I have got it all made up, and I don't want to hear any infidelity, either." As far ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... scattered lights with something of the exultation of Columbus when he spied the blazing torch which marked the New World. This was a new world to me. I had known only the inland, little valleys where life moved as placidly as the little rivers which threaded them. Now the sight of mast and spar, the salt vapors, the far-spread lights told me that I had come to a strange land, and I was eager to reach its heart and to see its mysteries. I was keyed high with the hope of conquest. With the salt marshes behind me, I left behind me, too, the Old World, the little valleys, the ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... shall lead the way For that wonderful coach of the Queen's to-day. Kings and Princes and Lords of the land Shall ride behind her, a humble band; And over the city and over the world Shall the Flags of all Nations be half-mast-furled, For the silent lady of royal birth Who is riding away from the Courts of earth, Riding away from the world's unrest To a mystical ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the twitch of his mouth—one of those twitches I used to study in angry dogs, and snapshot and measure: but he continued to gaze across the waters. After half a minute or so he glanced at me, looked seaward again, and observed quietly, 'It don't seem probable they would run mast-down in the time. And yet I don't know: 'twas blowing powerful fresh just after midnight. Hull-down, a boat might easily be; and supposing sail lowered, what's a boat's mast better to pick up than a needle in ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... gradually advance towards the mainland. They move at a rate of nine miles an hour, and therefore the weather stations on the Philippines, and other islands lying in the track of the typhoons, can send warnings by telegraph to the Chinese coast. Then the black triangle is hoisted on a tall mast in the harbour of Hong Kong, for instance, and is visible for a long distance. Every one knows what it means: a typhoon is on the way. The Chinese junks make in towards land, where they find shelter under the high coast, and all other vessels ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... played full upon the Lena. Suddenly Jack and Frank felt a terrific shock, and the Lena, for a moment, seemed to pause in her stride. A shell had struck the stem of the vessel. There was an explosion and a single high mast ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... heard the grey-headed General in Public Meetings. For the first time on Saturday evening I got near to him in a more private way. And then it seemed to me like a picture, as when a grey warrior, a commander with snow-white beard and keen profile, stands upright by the mast of a ship and gazes straight before him towards ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... steep banks wild and luxuriant, of the impenetrable forests, of the boundless steppes. Slowly and quietly the fancy pictures how early in the morning, before the flush of dawn has left the sky, a man makes his way along the steep deserted bank like a tiny speck: the ancient, mast-like pines rise up in terraces on both sides of the torrent, gaze sternly at the free man and murmur menacingly; rocks, huge stones, and thorny bushes bar his way, but he is strong in body and bold in spirit, and has no fear of the pine-trees, nor stones, nor of his solitude, ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... surrounding country. During the winter of 1798 to 1799 the sleds of all the farmers in the neighborhood were employed bringing in the timber for the frames and planking of the new ship. The rigging was manufactured by the three ropewalks then in the place, each undertaking one mast; and the sails were of cloth so carefully selected and so admirably cut that it was noticed the frigate never again sailed so well as with this first suit. When the rope cables, which alone were then used by ships instead of the chains ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... at the truck. The blue-peter is a term used in the British navy and widely elsewhere; it is a blue flag with a white square employed often as a signal for sailing. The word is corrupted from Blue Repeater, a signal flag. Truck is a very small platform at the top of a mast.] ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hours between these terraced hills, we at last reached the extremity of the fiord, where we found the "Saxon" looking like a black sea-dragon coiled up at the bottom of his den. Up fluttered a signal to the mast-head of the corvette, and blowing off her steam, she wore round upon her heel, to watch the effects of her summons. As if roused by the challenge of an intruder, the sleepy monster seemed suddenly to bestir itself, and then pouring out volumes of sulphureous breath, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... showed only a stray, lolling mast of steel, here or yonder, thrusting up from the desolation, like a mute appealing hand raised to a Heaven that ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... get lashed to the mast, eh, and are stopping your ears?" said the Vicar. "Well, if you don't mean to be won by the sirens, you are right ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the Silvia sailed from St. John's, and one week later (Friday the 27th), with her flag at half mast, steamed slowly to her dock ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... representatives to the national or State legislature; for what you cannot conscientiously perform yourself, you cannot ask another to perform as your agent. Circulate a declaration of DISUNION FROM SLAVEHOLDERS, throughout the country. Hold mass meetings—assemble in conventions—nail your banners to the mast! ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... seemed to have hopes and love to look to but he—"I alone am alone! The whole world is in love with me, and I'm utterly alone." Alone as a wreck upon a desert ocean, terrible in its calm as in its tempest. Broken was the helm and sailless was the mast, and he must drift till borne upon some ship-wrecking reef! Had fate designed him to float over every rock? must he wait till the years let through the waters of disease, and he foundered obscurely in the immense loneliness ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... seeing them lie in this case, went to them, if peradventure he might awake them, and cried, You are like them that sleep on the top of a mast, for the Dead Sea is under you-a gulf that hath no bottom (Prov. 23:34). Awake, therefore, and come away; be willing also, and I will help you off with your irons. He also told them, If he that "goeth about like a roaring lion" comes by, you will certainly become ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... occasion[270] to her death.[271] Accordingly, she issued secretly forth of her father's house one night and betaking herself to the harbour, happened upon a fishing smack, a little aloof from the other ships, which, for that its owners had but then landed therefrom, she found furnished with mast and sail and oars. In this she hastily embarked and rowed herself out to sea; then, being somewhat skilled in the mariner's art, as the women of that island mostly are, she made sail and casting the oars and rudder adrift, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the head of the island now, and had just tacked for their "short-leg" run, when, without the slightest sign of warning, something struck the mast a terrific blow. The yacht reeled wildly, the mast snapped like a pipe-stem, and fell with a splash into the water, carrying sail and ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... forget the horrors of the scene that ensued. We clewed up the mizzen royal, we lashed the foretop to make it spin upon its heels. The second dog watch barked his shins to the bone, and a tail of men hauled upon the halliards to mast-head the yard. Nothing availed. We had to be wrecked and wrecked we were, and as I clasped ARAMINTA's trustful head to my breast, the pale luminary sailing through the angry wrack glittered in phantasmal splendour on the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... to the god or goddess to whom the vessel is dedicated, and on which incense will be burned before starting on a long cruise and before going into battle. Two masts rise above the deck, a tall mainmast nearly amidships, and a much smaller mast well forward. On each of these a square sail (red, orange, blue, or even, with gala ships, purple) will be swung from a long yard, while the vessel is cruising; but it is useless to set sails in battle. One could never ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... and also that their numbers give a sure indication of a severe winter. This saying, I believe to be true; because neither the squirrels nor bears are plentiful, unless there is an abundant supply of beech-mast, butter- nuts, hickory-nuts, &c., which Providence has kindly provided in more superabundant quantity on the approach of a longer ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... on the following morning, I sent Lieutenant Hoppner, with the Heck's fore-royal-mast rigged as a flagstaff, which he erected on a conspicuous hill four or five miles inland, hoisting upon it a large ensign, which might be seen at a considerable distance in every direction. This expedient occurred to us as a more certain mode of directing our absentees ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry |
