"Mizzen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... head, The great Flag-Ship led, Grandest of sights! On her lofty mizzen flew Our Leader's dauntless Blue, That had waved o'er twenty fights— So we went, with the first of the tide, Slowly, mid the roar Of the Rebel guns ashore And the thunder of each ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... nearly three miles wide, toward the Gloucester shore. Before they had gone a quarter of a mile, a third and larger vessel came sweeping into view, her two rows of ports showing her to be a line-of-battle ship. Barely was she clear of the land when a string of small flags broke out from her mizzen rigging, and almost as if by magic, the yard arms of all three vessels were alive with men, and royals, top gallants, and mainsails with machine-like precision were dewed up and furled, and each ship, stripped of all but its topsails, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Heard—familiarly known as Gramfer Heard—shipbuilder of Devonport, and Dick Chichester's master, as a kind of yacht, for his own especial use and enjoyment. She was a very roomy boat, being entirely open from stem to stern, and was conveniently rigged with two masts, the main and mizzen, upon which were set two standing lugs and a jib, the mizzen sheet being hauled out to the end of a bumpkin; consequently when once her sails were set she could easily be ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... "She've lost her mizzen by the looks on it," said a fisherman, "an' that's more'n good reason for her bein' 'mong the ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... the subject, as par excellence the modern artistic picture of the MAY-FLOWER, although somewhat fanciful, and its rig, as Captain Collies observes, "is that of a ship a century later than the MAY-FLOWER; a square topsail on the mizzen," he notes, "being unknown in the early part of the seventeenth century, and a jib on a ship equally rare." Halsall's picture of "The Arrival of the MAY-FLOWER in Plymouth Harbor," owned by the Pilgrim Society, of Plymouth, and hung in the ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... helm!" roared the captain. "Mr. Bolton, brace up the mizzen-top-sail! Hoist and swing the ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... and this happened accordingly. For, by one o'clock p. m. the wind, which was at N.W., blew with such strength as obliged us to take in all our sails, to strike top-gallant-masts, and to get the spritsail-yard in. And I thought proper to wear, and lie-to, under a mizzen-stay-sail, with the ships' heads to the N.E. as they would bow the sea, which ran prodigiously high, better ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... indeed knew at all of our vicinity. One of the men selected for shipkeepers — that is, those not appointed to the boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the main-mast head. The sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the line tubs were fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... summit of the topmast, to the yardarm of the main topsail-yard. Up above it, on a bending light pole, fluttered the great colours, a George's cross of scarlet on a ground of white. Abaft the main-mast were the mizzen, carrying one sail, on a lateen yard, one arm of which nearly touched the deck; and the bonaventure mizzen (which we now call the jigger) rigged in exactly the same way. Right aft, was a banner pole for the display of colours. ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... was a cheerful enough place, pierced by the polished shaft of the mizzen mast, carpeted with an Axminster carpet, and garnished with mirrors let into the white pine panelling. Lestrange was staring at the reflection of his own face in one of these mirrors fixed just opposite to ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... should be glad if you would join us also, Mr. Seymour, after the watch has been called, and you can leave the deck. Let Mr. Wallingford have the watch; he is familiar with the bay. Tell him to take in the royal and the fore and mizzen topgallantsails if it blows heavily," he continued, after a pause, and then, bowing, ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... to the injury done by him and their better speed—they did that day escape action at close quarters, which could only have ended in their capture. When he hauled down his flag, his three topmasts were gone, the mizzen-mast fell immediately after, and the hull was so full of water that the ship was with difficulty kept afloat. M. de Sabran—his name is worthy to be remembered—had received eleven wounds in this gallant ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... in a resigned manner; "here have I lived fourscore years on this coast, and, for the life of me, I have never been able to tell a fore-royal from a back-royal; or a mizzen head-stay from a head mizzen-stay. They are the most puzzling things imaginable; and now I cannot discover how you know that yonder sail, which I see plain enough, is a royal, any more than ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the women and children. The good ship—well, never mind the name of ship; have forgotten it—lurches, gives one long roll, and sinks! Remaining passengers, headed by myself, swarm up the rigging to the mizzen-top. High sea, thunder and lightning. Great privations. Sun sinks in red, moon rises in green. All hope gone, when—hurrah, a sail! It is the life-boat! Slung on board by ropes. Rockets and coloured lights let off. The coxswain calls upon the crew ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... out in a fresh breadth of water, with marshes on either side and a far view of the sea, and there, heaving a little to the flowing tide, and with a sea-gull floating over her mizzen mast, lay ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... painted in an extraordinary way, and feathers fixed in their heads. Although they appeared friendly, it was impossible to persuade any of them to come on board. However, as the vessels had cast anchor, the captain had the sails furled, took in the topmasts, and unrigged the mizzen mast of the Resolution, in order to allow of repairs. Barter with the Indians soon commenced, and the most rigorous honesty prevailed. The objects offered were bear and wolf skins, and those of foxes, deers, and polecats, weasels, and especially otters, which are found in the islands ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... her regular complement was 300 men and boys, she was nearly 40 men short. Seeing the Constitution approaching, at 4:30 p.m. on the 19th the Guerrier laid her main-topsail to the mast, to enable her the more quickly to close. She then hoisted an English ensign at the peak, another at the mizzen-topgallant mast-head, and the Union Jack at the fore, and at 4:50 opened her starboard broadside at the Constitution. The American frigate being admirably manoeuvred, her heavy shot in a short time began to tell with ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... into the sea. The wedding-party occupied the whole width of the northern pier, and soon reached a small house situated at its extremity, inhabited by the harbour-master. The wind freshened, and the "Jeune-Hardie" ran swiftly under her topsails, mizzen, brigantine, gallant, and royal. There was evidently rejoicing on board as well as on land. Jean Cornbutte, spy-glass in hand, responded merrily to the ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... plundered the ship of what was portable and fit to hand out, I began with the cables; and cutting the great cable into pieces, such as I could move, I got two cables and a hawser on shore, with all the iron-work I could get; and having cut down the sprit-sail yard, and the mizzen yard, and everything I could to make a large raft, I loaded it with all those heavy goods, and came away. But my good luck began now to leave me; for this raft was so unwieldy, and so overladen, that after ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... been in the direction of the fire, appeared to have suffered in their masts and sails; but whether any injury had been received in their hulls it was not possible to say. The French line-of-battle ship had suffered dreadfully from the fire of the Portsmouth. Her mainmast and mizzen-mast were over the side, her forward ports were many of them almost beat into one, and every thing on board appeared to ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... train upon her a considerable part of her battery. Under these circumstances, it was the duty of the Dorsetshire, as it was the opportunity of her commander, by attacking the Hercules, to second, and support, the engaged ship; but she continued aloof. After two hours—by 3 P.M.—the main and mizzen masts were cut out of the Marlborough, and she lost her captain with forty-two men killed, and one hundred and twenty wounded, out of a crew of seven hundred and fifty. Thus disabled, the sails on the foremast ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... the commander to press on with the work of rigging the ship, the crossjack, or "crochet" yard being sent up by the aid of the mizzen burton hooked on in front of the top; after which the jack was slung and the trusses fixed on, the spar brought home to the mast, the lifts and braces having been fitted before swaying, as is the case with all the lower yards ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to give double the alms collected, even if she did not give the wind. Much surprised in so great confidence in a Moro, and all of us being encouraged, he collected in a short time eighteen pesos, and after folding them in a cloth, he tied them to the mizzen-masthead begging the Virgin to fulfil her promise. The fact was that from that day the wind to navigate (little or much) never failed us, until we reached Cochin. That was on January twenty-three, and on entering the bar there, we met a fleet ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... murdered, the head of the master being set on a pole before the governor's door.[356] At another time Fitzgerald sailed into the harbour of Havana with five Englishmen tied ready to hang, two at the main-yard arms, two at the fore-yard arms, and one at the mizzen peak, and as he approached the castle he had the wretches swung off, while he and his men shot at the dangling corpses from the decks of the vessel.[357] The repeated complaints and demands for reparation made to the Spanish ambassador in London, and by Sir ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... wind stirred the little flag that drooped from the mizzen-peak, and the clamorous ceaseless cries of sea-birds, added to the merry shouts and laughter of the men, as they followed the restless football, rendered the whole a scene of life, as it was emphatically one ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... and on the three following days 112, 57, and 92 knots respectively. While hove-to in this gale the canvas was severely punished. All the lower sails were more or less damaged, and sail was reduced to storm trysails. Two large barques were passed lying-to under lower main topsails and mizzen storm staysails. At dawn on the 2nd of ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... the most part shattered hulks at Cadiz. By this battle the supremacy of Great Britain at sea was finally established. Nelson, who, during the ship-to-ship engagement which followed his penetration of the enemy's line, was mortally wounded by a sharp-shooter from the mizzen-top of the Redoutable, died before the battle was over, though he was spared to hear that a complete victory was secure. His death is among the heroic incidents of history, and his last achievement, both in its conception ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... bulwarks and held on by the mizzen-shrouds, a strange little figure with flying skirts and puckered eyes. The lean lieutenant craned his neck and whispered to Smeaton, the second, while officers and men came popping up from below and clustered ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... bulwarks had been thoroughly crushed, and so the sea had successively torn away her boats, shivered her galley and wheelhouse, and filled her cabin and hold. Her masts were also destroyed, the fore and mizzen masts being carried away from their steppings, and the main-mast broken completely in twain just above the cross-trees. But a sight still more desolate, as well as harrowing, yet awaited us, as, in overhauling the sail-encumbered shrouds of the partially standing ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... course he got the step, though all too young for the responsibility. We had met with some bad weather when south of Malta, and had had a heavy gale for three days, during which time we lost our main topmast, and badly strained the mizzen. The weather abated when we were off Pantellaria, which is a bare rock rising like a mountain peak out of the sea, and with only one place where a landing can be safely effected. As the gale had blown itself out, and it was ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... there, driving the mules, and that's Bowsprit—the one all black from the coal. Cutwater's the girl leaning over the stern; Maintop, the one with the three pigtails; and Mizzen, the towhead playing with ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... of brightness fell upon me in the barrel, and looking up, I found the moon had risen and was silvering the mizzen-top and shining white on the luff of the fore-sail; and almost at the same time the voice of the lookout ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... heavy," muttered Jacopo to himself, and swinging his axe he cut off the mizzen-mast close to the deck. Neither Parlo nor Manuelita said a word, and, engaged only with each other, believed that Jacopo was trying to save them, and only as the mast heavily struck the waves ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... breezes and pleasant weather. At half-past four we saw Winerow Point bearing northwest by west. At seven o'clock we took in all studding-sails and staysails, and the fore and mizzen topgallant-sails. So another day passed and another night. An hour after midnight we took in the main topgallantsail, and lay by with our head to the south until six bells, when we wore ship, proceeding north again, and saw Java Head at nine ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... with the more ease. She had a flush deck; that is, it was unbroken from stem to stern. There was no cabin, poop, camboose, or other house on deck, and the eye had a clean range over the whole length of her. There was a skylight between the fore and the main mast, and another between the main and mizzen masts, to afford light and air to the apartments below. There were three openings in the deck by which entrance could be obtained to the interior of the ship: the fore hatch, the main hatch, and the companion-way, ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... minute their fire grew hotter, and their aim truer—down came our mizzen-topgallant-mast, and hung down over our quarter; away went our bowsprit—but we held on till we struck their line 'twixt the 'Santissima Trinidado' and the 'Beaucenture,' and, as we crossed the Spanisher's wake, so close that our yard-arms grazed her gilded ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... kinematograph-camera and was getting pictures of the 'Endurance' in her death-throes. While he was engaged thus, the ice, driving against the standing rigging and the fore-, main- and mizzen-masts, snapped the shrouds. The foretop and topgallant-mast came down with a run and hung in wreckage on the fore-mast, with the fore-yard vertical. The main-mast followed immediately, snapping off about 10 ft. above the main deck. The crow's-nest fell within 10 ft. of where Hurley stood ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... foot and a half long, fluttering from the tip-top of one of the masts; but the flag, the ensign of the ship (which never was struck, thank God), is under water, so as to be quite invisible, being attached to the gaff, I think they call it, of the mizzen-mast; and though this bald description makes nothing of it, I never saw anything so gloriously forlorn as those three masts. I did not think it was in me to be so moved by any spectacle of the kind. Bodies still occasionally float up from it. The Secretary ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... held strong all that day, and for the five days following, gradually hauling round, however, and heading us, until, with our yards braced hard in against the lee rigging, and the three royals and mizzen topgallant-sail stowed, we went thrashing away to the westward against a heavy head-sea that kept our decks streaming as far aft as the mainmast, instead of bowling away across the Bay under studding-sails, as we had hoped. Then we fell in with ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... in this way: Night, clouds racing overhead, wind howling, royals set, and the ship rushing on in the dark, an immense white sheet of foam level with the lee rail. Mr. P-, in charge of the deck, hooked on to the windward mizzen rigging in a state of perfect serenity; myself, the third mate, also hooked on somewhere to windward of the slanting poop, in a state of the utmost preparedness to jump at the very first hint of some sort of order, but otherwise in a perfectly acquiescent state ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... sawe no land: and the 16. day towards night, we looked for land, but we sawe none. But because we supposed our selues to be neere our port, we tooke in all our sailes except onely the foresaile and the mizzen, and so ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... the best way, Tom. We must make the best allowance we can for the wind and the set of tide, otherwise they will never drift a line down to us. She won't hold together long. Her stern is gone as far as the mizzen, so we ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... how they harpooned one right whale, and by good luck were able. to make her fast to the stern of the ship. "And, if you will believe me, Miss Fountain, though there was just a breath on and off right aft, and the foresail, jib and mizzen all set to catch it, she towed the ship astern a good cable's length, and the last thing was she broke the harpoon shaft just below the line, and away she swam right in ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... in my time, but never just in that way. With the mizzen boom we rigged up a fore jury-mast and made shift to hoist a storm staysail to give us steerin' way and rigged up a tiller for steerin'. The wind was whistling like all possessed. It was askin' more than any vessel had a right ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... there was a tall, gallant ship, with royals and skysails set, bending over before the strong afternoon breeze, and coming rapidly round the point. Her yards were braced sharp up; every sail was set, and drew well; the stars and stripes were flying from her mizzen-peak, and, having the tide in her favor, she came up like a race-horse. It was nearly six months since a new vessel had entered San Diego, and, of course, every one was wide awake. She certainly made a fine appearance. Her light sails were taken in, as she passed the low, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... merchantman, and had already opened upon her with his long gun. Captain Horton pressed onward without noticing the balls, which as yet had not injured hull or sail. But as the chase approached nearer and nearer, the shots began to take effect—a heavy ball made a huge rent in the mizzen-topsail—another dashed in the galley, and a third tore up the companion-way, and still another cut down the fore-topmast, and materially decreased the speed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... buffeted with every kind of evil weather, all their mischances were speedily rectified. In a heavy sea, all their unstable cargo surged about as though it had been liquid, but it always shifted back again before she quite capsized. The mizzen-mast went bodily overboard in one black rain-squall because they were too short-handed to get sail off it in time, but they found that the vessel sailed almost as well as a brig, and was much easier for a ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... whole Ottoman fleet was in sight. Several others, climbing up the rigging, confirmed his report; and in a few moments more word was sent to the same effect by Andrew Doria, who commanded on the right. There was no longer any doubt; and Don John, ordering his pendant to be displayed at the mizzen-peak, unfurled the great standard of the League, given by the pope, and directed a gun to be fired, the signal for battle. The report, as it ran along the rocky shores, fell cheerily on the ears of the confederates, who, raising their eyes towards the consecrated banner, filled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... would take the light yard men aloft, furl the sail, and probably cast reflections on the stowage of the bunt. Anything connected with the anchor was a kick. The mainmast was consecrated to the left half, and the mizzen to the fullback. ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... by watching when the crest of the wave was on a level with the observer's eye (the height above the trough of the sea being known) either while standing on the poop or in the mizzen rigging; this must be reduced to one half to obtain the absolute height of the wave above the mean level of the sea. The length and velocity were found by noting the time taken by the wave to traverse the measured distance (100 yards) between the ship and the spar towing ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... three days we had been bothered with light head winds and calms, and since four o'clock this day the ocean had stretched in oil-smooth undulations to its margin, with never a sigh of air to crispen its marvellous serenity into shadow. The courses were hauled up, the staysails down, the mizzen brailed up; the canvas delicately beat the masts to the soft swing of the tall spars, and sent a small rippling thunder through the still air, like a roll of drums heard at a distance. The heat was great; I had never remembered a more biting sun. The pitch in the seams was soft as putty, the atmosphere ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... change of the wind, the Dutch vessels closed around the flagship with a perfect circle of fire. Two guns were disabled, the main and mizzen masts had been shot away, and a long line of wounded and dying men were lying among the shattered rigging. The thunder from the guns on the right showed that there the English were getting the best of it; but even if help should come to the ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... An October day, with waves running in blue-white lines and a capful of wind. Three broad flags ripple out behind Where the masts will be: Royal Standard at the main, Admiralty flag at the fore, Union Jack at the mizzen. The hammers tap harder, faster, They must finish by noon. The last nail is driven. But the wind has increased to half a gale, And the ship shakes and quivers upon the ways. The Commissioner of Chatham Dockyard ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... when the two ships came in sight of each other, and immediately prepared for a fight. Nearer and nearer they came to each other, but not until they were scarce fifty yards apart did the Constitution open fire. Then it was deadly. The mizzen mast of the Guerriere was shot away; very soon the main mast followed, and in less than half an hour the Guerriere was a hopeless wreck. Then the British captain struck his ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... however, and we saw no signs of its abating. The rigging was found to be ill-fitted, and greatly strained; and on the third day of the blow, about five in the afternoon, our mizzen-mast, in a heavy lurch to windward, went by the board. For an hour or more, we tried in vain to get rid of it, on account of the prodigious rolling of the ship; and, before we had succeeded, the carpenter came aft and announced four feet of water in the hold. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Turner, when he painted his "slave-ship," could have asked no better model. There is no name upon the stern, and it exhibits merely a carved eagle, with the wings clipped and the head knocked off. Only the lower masts remain, which are of a dismal black, as are the tops and mizzen cross-trees. Within the bulwarks, on each side, stand rows of black blocks, to which the shrouds were once attached; these blocks are called by sailors "dead-eyes," and each stands in weird mockery, ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... electric light projectors, one forward on the upper deck, one on the bridge just forward of the funnel, and one in the mizzen top.—Engineering. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... this is the fore, main or mizzen," observed Dick; "or whether she had more than two masts. There must be some of her hull left, but it is all under water and maybe ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... whither our bowsprit pointed, a white-sailed clipper grew larger as we approached her. The Danish ensign flew at her mizzen; the familiar signal for a pilot streamed from her fore peak. My heart beat quicker, telling me who was aboard this fair vessel as nearer and nearer we drew. Now we could distinguish the tiny figures moving about her yards, as one by one her ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... by the tropical hurricane sweeping up from the Caribbean Sea, was staggering along like a wounded beast. Her masts had long since gone by the board, and upon the stump of the mizzen-stick a bit of canvas like a goose-wing had been spread in the useless ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... were about two miles distant, the stranger slackened sail and hove to, hoisting stars and stripes at her mizzen. The union jack went up the shrouds of the Springbok directly, and she pursued her course, but ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... three-masted vessel with a very high "forecastle" and "sterncastle" and very deep in the waist; she had three masts, the foremast carrying one square sail, the mainmast having both mainsail and main-topsail, the mizzen was rigged with a lateen sail, on the mainsail was painted the Maltese and on the foresail the Papal cross, and on deck she carried a brick-built cooking galley. A most beautiful model of this vessel is ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... a great deal," the captain said, "to have time to get down all our light spars. Get ready your small fore try-sail, and a small stay-sail to run up on the mizzen." ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... last part of Sebright's plan had to be carried out at once. The foresheet of the drogher appeared to part, our mainsail shook, and before I could gasp twice, we had drifted stern foremost into the Lion's mizzen chains with a crash that brought a genuine expression of concern to the old negro's face. He had managed the whole thing with a most convincing skill, and without even once glancing at the ship. We had done our part, but the people of the Lion seemed to fail in theirs ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... a gale. The trawls were up now, and the fleet lay to. It may be explained that this operation is performed by bringing a ship nearly into the eye of the wind, and then hauling the foresail across, and belaying the sheet. The aft sail—or mizzen—is then hauled tight, and the tiller lashed amidships. As the fore-sail pays the vessel off from the wind, the after sail brings her up again; and she is thus kept nearly head to sea, and the crew go below, and wait ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... without flexibility, could not express dejection. He was very tired suddenly; he dragged his feet going off the poop. Before he left it with nearly an hour of his watch below sacrificed, he addressed himself once more to our young man who stood abreast of the mizzen rigging in an unreceptive mood expressed by silence and immobility. He did not regret, he said, having spoken openly ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Virginia, trading with the inhabitants the spoils he had taken from vessels in the Atlantic. He learnt his trade under the daring pirate Bannister, who was brought into Port Royal, hanging dead from his own yard-arm. On this occasion, Lewis and another boy were triced up to the corvette's mizzen-peak like "two living flags." ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... the mast. Her decks were full of men, standing in groups under the shade of the sails to leeward; and on the poop were three or four officers in uniform and straw hats. One of these last stood for some time gazing at the brig—one hand resting on the ratlines of the mizzen shrouds, and the other slowly swinging a trumpet backward and forward. Presently an officer with a pair of gleaming epaulets on his shoulders mounted the poop ladder, touched his hat, and waved his hand toward the brig. ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... planting his feet firmly on the broad beading which ran along the top edge of the sheer-strake, and leaning his body against the bulwarks, whilst he grasped the outer edge of the rail to steady himself, he speedily and easily reached the mizzen-chains. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... Mengayu, which, being translated, signifies piratical or cruising waiting-place. The weather was thick and squally, and it was late before the Daedalus and Vestal arrived with their tows, the Nemesis and Pluto, the former frigate having carried away her mizzen top-mast. ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... the other day to a naval officer, he complained of it, first that "the jib[U] would not be wanted with the wind blowing out of harbor," and, secondly, that "a man-of-war would never have her foretop-gallant sail set, and her main and mizzen top-gallants furled:—all the men would be on the yards ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... continued, smacking the bulwark, "is His—Majesty's—ship—Tremendous, well known and respected between the Lizard and the Nore. Not lookin her sauciest just now, I grant you: shrouds tore to tatters, mizzen spliced, bowsprit splintered, plugged fore and aft, and alf her weather bulwark carried away. But that's ex tempore, as the sayin is. We only put in at dawn to ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... watched the twilight, And the glimmer of the skylight, That shot across the deck; And the binnacle pale and steady, And the dull glimpse of the dead-eye, And the sparks in fiery eddy That whirled from the chimney neck. In our jovial floating prison There was sleep from fore to mizzen, And never a star had risen The ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... may be conceived but not described. The windlass was instantly manned, and the men soon gave out that there was no strain on the cable. The mizzen-sail, which was occasionally bent for the purpose of making the ship ride easily, was at once set; the other sails were hoisted as quickly as possible, and they bore away about a mile to the south-westward, where, at a spot that was deemed suitable, the best-bower ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... In crossing the equator we had the usual visit of Neptune and his wife, who, with a large razor and a bucket of soapsuds, came over the sides and shaved some of the greenhorns; but naval etiquette exempted the officers, and Neptune was not permitted to come aft of the mizzen-mast. At last, after sixty days of absolute monotony, the island of Raza, off Rio Janeiro, was descried, and we slowly entered the harbor, passing a fort on our right hand, from which came a hail, in the Portuguese language, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... maintopgallantsail-yard, upper maintopgallantsail-yard, main royal-yard and skysail-yard; on the foremast we have the fore-yard, then the topsail-yards, topgallantsail-yards and royal; and on the mizzenmast we have a similar series of yards, beginning with the mizzen or crossjack. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... the heads of the fugitives. At daybreak the party took their places in the boat with the fishermen. Virginie was still weak, but was able to walk with Harry's help. Half an hour later a lugger was seen coming down with the wind and tide. She carried a small white flag flying on the mizzen. ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... now threw her lead into the stern of the defender of the flag of the States General and her mizzen-mast was seen to rock like an ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... got clear of each other and pluckily attempted to carry on the fight. But the odds were hopeless. The officer whose painful duty it was to signal the surrender of the Detroit said of this British flagship: "The ship lying completely unmanageable, every brace cut away, the mizzen-topmast and gaff down, all the other masts badly wounded, not a stay left forward, hull shattered very much, a number of guns disabled, and the enemy's squadron raking both ships ahead and astern, none of our own in a position to support us, I was under the painful ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... turn round and round in his head, his legs began to tremble and his palsied lips parted helplessly, as he pointed to the colors she flew. The American flag fluttered from the mizzen-mast of the ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... Odling at the bottom of the engine-room stair seemed to be drawing on a pair of reindeer komagar; and Cartwright, who was often in liquor, had his arms frozen tight round the neck of Martin, whom he seemed to be kissing, they two lying stark at the foot of the mizzen-mast. ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... church and killed the sexton. Cruising on this Siberian ground was horribly monotonous work. We sincerely wished the French fleet alongside of us, or in a warmer place. On one dark night we were caught in a heavy gale from the westward. We were under close-reefed main and foretop-sails and mizzen. The ship was settling down on Ushant rapidly, and we expected to strike every moment. The rebound of the water from the rocks caused the spray to fly half-way over the decks from to leeward. A rock called La Jument ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... furnished new ammunition for the garrison. On the other hand, the decks of the attacking vessels were swept by fire from the cliffs. One shot carried away the ensign of the flag-ship, and another tore away her rigging and shattered her mizzen, and the rest of the fleet ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... you but lays down his life for others as quietly and simply as he fills his pipe. From the rocking mizzen you look down calmly upon the world of men tossing with petty and complex passions—look down with the calm, kindly comprehension of a mature soul which has learned something of Immortal toleration. The scheme ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... out, he himself hauling out the mizzen. A minute later the sails filled and the boat sped out over the smooth water, white-winged as a sea-bird ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... down the Hag, at the fore it was red, And blue at the mizzen was hoisted instead By Nelson's famed Captain, the pride of each tar, Who fought in ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... passage home one morning (As certain as I prays for grace) There was old Bill's shadder a-hauling At the mizzen weather topsail brace. He was all grown green with seaweed He was all lashed up and shored; So I says to him, I says, 'Why, Billy! What's a-bringin' of you ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... them began spinning tough yarns respecting the hardships of a sea life—what a horrible bore it was to keep night watches, or any watch at all, and you are sure, said one of them, to catch the fever and ague after you have been four hours walking under the draught of the mizzen stay-sail; and, added another, to be mast-headed for three hours with your face to windward by those tyrants, the second and third lieutenants. They both ought to be turned out of the Service for tyranny and oppression, and as to the last he does not ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... standing with his back toward me beside the mizzen-mast. From his clothes I guessed the watch to ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... "A slaver, be the mizzen top av the ark," he exclaimed. "There's no use av huntin' through that fellow. They would have no cash aboard if the skeletons are there. They'd have to sell the nagers before ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... I'll tell you what I would do,' said the captain: 'I would have none of your fancy rigs with the man driving from the mizzen cross-trees, but a plain fore-and-aft hack cab of the highest registered tonnage. First of all, I would bring up at the market and get a turkey and a sucking-pig. Then I'd go to a wine merchant's and get a dozen of champagne, and a ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... one at the stern, This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists, Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen; ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... canister, swept the proud Don from stem to stern, while through the white cloud of smoke the musket-balls, and the still deadlier clothyard arrows, whistled and rushed upon their venomous errand. Down went the steersman, and every soul who manned the poop. Down went the mizzen topmast, in went the stern windows and quarter galleries; and as the smoke cleared away, the gorgeous painting of the Madre Dolorosa, with her heart full of seven swords, which, in a gilded frame, bedizened the Spanish stern, was shivered in splinters; ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... yard-arms; the multitudes of ropes like the threads of a spider's web; flags, streamers, red, white, green, blue, yellow, with devices of lions, unicorns, dragons, eagles, fluttering from bowsprit to fore-royal mast, from taffrail to mizzen. Beneath the bowsprit was the bust of Berinthia, the heart and soul of the man who carved it in every feature, for to Abraham Duncan there was no face on earth so beautiful as that ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... that she was a long time "out"; her sails, not yet all furled, were old and weather-worn; her sides badly needed paint; and as she rose and fell with the swell, she showed barnacles and "grass" below the water-line. At her mizzen-peak flew the American ensign, and at the fore-truck the ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... correct that judgment. One day towards the end of May, when the heat was beginning to grow oppressive, there crawled into Carlisle Bay a wounded, battered English ship, the Pride of Devon, her freeboard scarred and broken, her coach a gaping wreck, her mizzen so shot away that only a jagged stump remained to tell the place where it had stood. She had been in action off Martinique with two Spanish treasure ships, and although her captain swore that the Spaniards had beset him without provocation, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... was like to overblow, we took in our sprit-sail, and stood by to hand the foresail; but making foul weather, we looked the guns were all fast, and handed the mizzen. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... jib.' It was time; the squall was on us, and the vessel began to heel. 'Ah,' said the captain, 'we have still too much canvas set; all hands lower the mains'l!' Five minutes after, it was down; and we sailed under mizzen-tops'ls and to'gall'nt sails. 'Well, Penelon,' said the captain, 'what makes you shake your head?' 'Why,' I says, 'I still think you've got too much on.' 'I think you're right,' answered he, 'we shall have a gale.' 'A gale? ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Rose had the wind on her quarter, her best point of sailing, and she was covered with canvas from her trucks to her decks, from her spritsail yard to her huge mizzen crossjack, a lateen sail. The wind was light, but she was making rapid progress toward the approaching strangers, who, with their larboard tacks aboard, were beating up toward ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... something—a spark, or a glow, or the luminous break of a wave. So swiftly it came and went, that it was gone before I could look. A trick of my vision, thought I. No! there it was again, this time nothing but a spark, close by, on a level, perhaps, with our mizzen. So near was it, I wondered whether it might not be the lighting of a match at our own guns. It went again: and as it did so, my finger, almost without my knowing it, tightened on the trigger of my pistol and ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... further service, I ordered the ships to withdraw to their former moorings." Besides the casualties among the crew, and severe damage to the hull, the Bristol's mainmast, with nine cannon-balls in it, had to be shortened, while the mizzen-mast was condemned. The injury to the frigates was immaterial, owing to the ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... treated me handsome right straight along," the old sailor explained, while the inspector, thinking this not a safe subject to continue, spoke suddenly about some fault of the galley; and after this was discussed, the eyes of the two practiced men sought the damaged mizzen mast, the rigging of which was hanging in snarled and broken lengths. When Nan asked for some account of the accident, she was told with great confidence that the Highflyer had been fouled, and that it was the other vessel's fault; at which she was no wiser ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Cart-horse," because she seemed broad and bluff for her length. She was forty-five feet in length, with a fifteen- foot beam and seven-foot depth. She was first rigged as a lugger, but altered to the more modern "dandy" (something like a ketch but with more rake to the mizzen and with no topmast on the mainmast) before she was sold. Any one about the herring basins who has arrived at fisherman's maturity (about sixty years) will remember the Mum Tum, and, so far as she was concerned, the partnership was entirely ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... snub-nosed-looking little craft, short and squat, with high, upstanding bows, prominent wheelhouses, and stumpy mizzen-masts abaft all. They hailed from many ports and still bore the letters and numbers of their peace-time vocation: F.D. for Fleetwood, G.Y. for Grimsby, B.F. for Banff, and P.D. for Peterhead. They were steam herring drifters in the ordinary, common, or garden, ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... Tried to fire into the enemy, but just as we got the gun to bear, and got a new light, he fell off. It was very bad working in the dark. The lanthorns are as bad as they can be. Loaded both guns, got new portfires, and we ran into the enemy. We were wearing, and I believe our jib-boom got into his mizzen rigging. The ships were made fast by the men on the upper deck. At first I could not bring a gun to bear, the enemy was so far ahead of me. But as soon as we anchored, our ship forged ahead a little,—and by bringing the hind axle-trucks well ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... come to close quarters, and some were locked in deadly conflict. Other ships, still apart, fired at point-blank range, and all the horrors of slaughter were in full swing. From the square blue flag at the mizzen top gallant masthead of one of the British ships engaged, Dyck saw that the admiral's own craft was in some peril. The way lay open for the Ariadne to bear down upon the French ship, engaged with the admiral's smaller ship, and help ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... dressed perpendicularly, whilst she had her flags fore and aft, running up to her flying jib-boom from the water, and down to the gaff on her mizzen. The frigate had been newly painted, and looked upon this occasion exceedingly well, her neat appearance being the subject of ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... the main and mizzen sheets!" ordered the captain, to bring the yacht round and get a leeward launch ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... at four in the morning, is a fine time to see the stars, if one be but properly awake. Overhead, Orion has reached his height, and is now striding towards the western horizon. The Dog-star is high over the mizzen truck, and Canopus, clear of the weather backstays, is a friend to a drowsy helmsman. The Southern Cross is clearing the sea-line, and above it many-eyed Argus keeps watch over the Pole. Old friends, all of them, companions of many a night watch on ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... came to a dead halt, life sinking in her with the failing of the wind in a sort of dying shudder from royal to course, this was how her decks showed: a man was at the wheel, the chief mate leaned against the rail in the thickness made by the mizzen rigging, and with folded arms seemed to doze in the shadow; a 'young gentleman,' as they used to call the 'brass-bounders,' loafed sleepily near the main shrouds where the break of the poop came. That youngster watched the stars trembling ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... good-sized half-decked boat of some twenty-six feet long and eight feet beam. She was very deep, and carried three tons of stone ballast in her bottom. She drew about six feet of water. She had a lot of freeboard, and carried two lug-sails and a small mizzen. ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... furniture in the world, best calculated to cure a had temper, and breed a pleasant one, is the sight of a lovely wife. If you have children, however, that are teething, the nursery should be a good way up stairs; at sea, it ought to be in the mizzen-top. Indeed, teething children play the very deuce with a husband's temper. I have known three promising young husbands completely spoil on their wives' hands, by reason of a teething child, whose worrisomeness happened to be aggravated ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... swing of the unbought brine — We'll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o' the Line: Till we come as a ship o' the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer, Lifting again from the outer main with news of a privateer; Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Admiralty, Heaving his head for our dipsey-lead in sign that we keep the sea. Then fore-sheet home as she lifts to the foam — we stand on the outward tack, We are paid in the coin of the white man's trade — the bezant ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... their opponents. The flag-ship, being in the advance, drew somewhat ahead of the smoke, although even she had from time to time to stop firing to enable the pilot to see. Her movements were also facilitated by placing the pilot in the mizzen-top, with a speaking tube to communicate with the deck, a precaution to which the admiral largely attributed her safety; but the vessels in the rear found it impossible to see, and groped blindly, feeling their way after their leader. Had the course to be traversed been ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... a condition of engaging Mr. Orlando B. Sturge (who was exacting in details), had mounted it, at great expense, with a couple of lifelike guns, R. and L., and for background the overhang of the quarter-deck, with rails and a mizzen-mast of real timber against a painted cloth representing the rise ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... roared the captain. "Mr Bolton, brace up the mizzen top-sail! Hoist and swing the boats! ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... much taken with him owing to what had happened, and I looked down at him as he ate, for I could see him very well as I stood near the mizzen on the port side of the cabin skylight. The glass of the hatch was raised to let the cabin air, and I watched the bushy head beneath, with its aggressive beard bending over the dirty table-cloth. The large squat nose seemed to sniff the good ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... I could make out faintly the fore and mizzen royals flapping in the wind. The main had been left for a while longer. In the fore riggings, Jacobs, the Ordinary Seaman in the Mate's watch, was following another of the men aloft to the sail. The Mate's two 'prentices were ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... voyage, and now, having plundered the ship of what was portable and fit to hand out, I began with the cables. Cutting the great cable into pieces, such as I could move, I got two cables and a hawser on shore, with all the ironwork I could get; and having cut down the spritsail-yard, and the mizzen- yard, and everything I could, to make a large raft, I loaded it with all these heavy goods, and came away. But my good luck began now to leave me; for this raft was so unwieldy, and so overladen, that, after ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... is our larboard and starboard, Our main-mast, our mizzen, our log, On shore, or at sea, or when harbour'd, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of the navy of France was signed and sealed by the fight of Trafalgar. In the heat of the action, a ball, fired from the mizzen-top of the Redoubtable, struck Admiral Nelson on the left shoulder, when he instantly fell. "They have done for me, at last, Hardy," said he, to ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... dexterity in the management of both sails and helm, and some of our braces being shot away, it did not exactly succeed to my wishes; the enemy's bowsprit, however, came over the Bonhomme Richard's poop, by the mizzen mast, and I made both ships fast together in that situation, which, by the action of the wind (p. 105) on the enemy's sails, forced her stern close to the Bonhomme Richard's bow, so that the ships lay square alongside of each other, the yards being all entangled, and the cannon of each ship ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... good breeze from the south'ard when we're off the land," said Jarrow, glancing aloft to the windvane on the mizzen truck. It was flopping about like a dead ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... we might get better view of her. Thus I saw her a great way in from the edge of the weed, and I noted that her foremast was gone near to the deck, and she had no main topmast; though, strangely enough, her mizzen stood unharmed. And beyond this, I could make out but little, because of the distance; though the sun, which was upon our larboard side, gave me some sight of her hull, but not much, because of the weed ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... down under an easy spread of canvas, wearing a jib, three topsails, fore, main, and mizzen, and her spanker. It did not appear as if she had any previous intimation of the presence of the slaver, but rather that she was on the watch for just such a quarry as chance had placed within reach of her guns. The moment she discovered the brigantine, and at a signal which we could not ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... in hopeless confusion, cordage and rigging, splintered yards, and shattered deck-house—all alike had suffered a sea change. The foremast and the mainmast were gone, and their stumps stood up jagged and torn, but the mizzen lower mast still remained, and the men—those of them that were left—were in the rigging, for the deck every moment was becoming more untenable. The wheel was broken and the Russian Finn lay dead ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... Bay, during a storm "ABOUT 22nd December," and it may possibly have been the one Cook encountered on the 28th off the north end of the island. They were blown out of sight of land on the 13th, the main topsail being split, and next day both fore and mizzen topsails were lost, but they managed to bring up under shelter of a small island off Knuckle Point. On the 15th the latitude was found to be 34 degrees 6 minutes South, with land visible to the south-west, and a large swell ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... was trained and fired. The heavy boom rang out over the bluffs and water. The ball went through the Royal George from stern to stem, sending splinters as high as her mizzen topsail yard, killing fourteen ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... which was a long and difficult job; for frequently he was obliged to stop and hold on with all his might for several minutes, the ship pitching so as to make it impossible to do anything else at that height. The yard at length came down safe, and after it the fore and mizzen royal yards were sent down. All hands were then sent aloft, and for an hour or two we were hard at work, making the booms well fast, unreefing the studding sail and royal and skysail gear, getting rolling-ropes on the yard, setting up the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... took possession of the couple was when they, through the glass, saw the Stars and Stripes fluttering from the mizzen of the ship which came the nearest and then made off again. The sight of that most beautiful banner in the world was like a glimpse of their distant New England home, and they seemed to feel the cool breeze ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... Hoisted at her mizzen-peak was a red flag, with a turreted white castle in the middle, which looked foreign enough, and made me ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... professional phrase; and this belief received color from the fact that a little before, in his feverish fancy, he had been capturing a Spanish galleon, and had got about to the part of the affair where the sheering up of a plank midway between the main and mizzen masts, for the accommodation of the Spaniards in leaving their vessel, would be appropriate. Thinking the matter over calmly afterwards, and in the light of subsequent events, she came to the conclusion that he was trying to tell her how and where his treasure was hid. Acting upon ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... the mizzen window looks sort of familiar to me. The one that stood up to shake a day-day to whoever was passin'. Hum! He's made a hit, ain't he? I expect some unprotected female's heart broke at that signal. ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rest of the shipping in that Eastern port, I was left in no doubt as to Hermann's notions of hygienic clothing. Evidently he believed in wearing good stout flannel next his skin. On most days little frocks and pinafores could be seen drying in the mizzen rigging of his ship, or a tiny row of socks fluttering on the signal halyards; but once a fortnight the family washing was exhibited in force. It covered the poop entirely. The afternoon breeze would incite to a weird and flabby activity all that crowded mass of clothing, with its ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... to the Centurion in this maner, two lay on one side and two on another, and the Admirall lay full in the stern, which galled and battered the Centurion so sore, that her maine Maste was greatly weakened, her sailes filled with many holes, and the Mizzen and sterne made ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... my boy. We'll splice the spanker boom, and port the helm to starboard, and ship the taffrail on to the lee scuppers of the after hatch, and dance hornpipes on the mizzen peak. Hulloa, captain, here's my mate, up to all sorts of sea larks; he can box the compass and do logarithm sums, and work navigation by single or double entry." The schoolmaster blushed for his companion, at whose exuberant ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... over the tumult, and his boat crashed into the waist of the ship just as Brian leaped up into the mizzen-chains. His feet gained hold on a triced-up port, and as he looked down he saw a swell heave up the two boats, then bring them down together with a ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... sombre and vacant expression, and beneath the cabin-windows is painted the name of the ship, and her port of register. The lower masts of this vessel are short and stout, the top-masts are of great height, the extreme points of the fore and mizzen-royal poles, are adorned with gilt balls, and over all, at the truck of the main sky-sail pole, floats a handsome red burgee, upon which a large G is visible. There are no yards across but the lower and topsail-yards, which are very long and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... time completely hid the wreck from view. When it cleared for an instant, we made out that she had an English ensign reversed secured to the main-rigging. Her mainmast alone was standing entire, her foremast had gone by the board, her mizzen-mast was carried away at the top, and part only of her bowsprit remained. Her maintop-mast-yard was still crossed; but the sail, torn to ribbons, now fluttered in the wind, and not another inch ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... I found the ship driving fast down Channel, making an excellent passage. I took up my place by the mizzen-rigging, near which there were no seamen at work, so that I could puzzle out a new hiding-place for my letters. I noticed, as I stood there, that some men were getting a boat over the side. It seemed a queer thing to be doing in the Channel, ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... Jack, in company with Dick Sand, spring out on the shrouds, climb to the top of the mizzen-mast, or to the booms of the mizzen-topmast, and come down again like an arrow the whole length of the backstays. Dick Sand went before or followed him, always ready to hold him up or keep him back, if his six-year-old arms grew feeble ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... to board the enemy; but this I would not permit, as it was evident, from the commencement of the action, that our fire was greatly superior, both in quickness and effect. The enemy's bowsprit came between our main and mizzen rigging, on our starboard side, affording him an opportunity to board us, if such was his design; but no attempt was made. There was a considerable swell on; and, as the sea lifted us ahead, the enemy's bowsprit ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... now began to put on an aspect very different from what they had lately worn; the news that the ship had almost lost its mizzen, and that we had procured very fine clouted cream and fresh bread and butter from the shore, restored health and spirits to our women, and we all sat down to a very cheerful breakfast. But, however pleasant ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... the Confederate gunners. But soon the smoke of battle settled down over all; and gunners, whether on shore or on the ships, fired at random. The "Hartford" led the way, and picked out the course; and the other vessels followed carefully in her wake. In the mizzen-top of the flagship was stationed a cool old river pilot, who had guided many a huge river steamer, freighted with precious lives, through the mazy channels of the Mississippi. There, high above the battle-smoke, heedless of the grape-shot ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... see, father," Geoffrey said triumphantly; "she carries a big mizzen sail. That's what she is, you see; and he is going to show us London, and will take great care of us if you will let ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... for speed been so great. As the night wore on the decks grew hotter and hotter, until the pitch fairly bubbled from the seams, and a strong smell of burning pervaded the ship. At daylight the American flag was run half-way up to the mizzen peak, union down, as a signal of distress. By sunrise the Highlands of Navesink were in sight, and they also saw a pilot-boat bearing rapidly down upon ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... ships-of-the-line, the French fifteen; and it was quite in the enemy's power to fulfil his other prediction, by keeping Hotham in hot water during the winter. In the middle of November the "Agamemnon" had to go to Leghorn for extensive repairs, and remained there, shifting her main and mizzen masts, until the 21st of December. Nelson, who had endured with unyielding cheerfulness the dangers, exposure, and sickliness of Calvi, found himself unable to bear patiently the comfort of quiet nights in a friendly port, while hot work might chance outside. "Lying in port ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... at the very instant that our adventurer began his charge. The unknown knight was so sensible of the seasonable interposition, that, riding up to our hero, "Brother," said he, "this is the second time you have holp me off, when I was bump ashore.—Bess Mizzen, I must say, is no more than a leaky bum-boat, in comparison of the glorious galley you want to man. I desire that henceforth we may cruise in the same latitudes, brother; and I'll be d—ned if I don't stand by you ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... his stand on the hawse-block, he drew from his pocket a small note-book, cast upon it his eye and announced—doubtless through the trumpet—"Man the fore-royal braces!" Again a pause, and further reference. "Man the main-royal braces!" Again a pause: "Man the mizzen-royal braces—Man all the royal braces." It is quite true, however, that there may be plenty of knowledge with lack of power to apply it professionally—a fact observable in all callings, but one which ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... spring upon our weather-bow and to leap on board. We hear the crash and feel the shock, and presently the water comes pouring aft,—and Captain Cope calls out to reef topsails,—double-reef fore and mizzen,—one reef in the main. The mates are in the weather-rigging before the word is out of the captain's lips, to take the earings of their respective topsails; and then follows the rush of men up the shrouds and out along the yards. The sails are slatting and flapping, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... replied the wretch, 'and put his head at the main topgallant masthead—and we will put the first-mate's head at the mizzen, and the boatswain's at the fore. The other convicts who are not with us in the matter we shall put on shore at some island, and leave them to shift for themselves, they are worth nothing. The ship is a good prize, for the captain has a large sum of money ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... prolongation of the whole dark mass toward the heavens had a portentous look to those who gazed from below; and when the denser fog sometimes furled itself away from the topgallant masts, hitherto invisible, and showed them rising loftier yet, and the tricolor at the mizzen-mast-head looking down as if from the zenith, then they all seemed to appertain to something of more than human workmanship; a hundred wild tales of phantom vessels came up to the imagination, and it was as if that one gigantic structure were expanding to fill ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... to cut the fasts and shove off. The necessity for prompt obedience and exertion was urgent. The flames had now gained the lower rigging, and ascended to the tops; they darted furiously from the ports, flashing from the quarter gallery round the mizzen of the Intrepid, as her stern dropped clear of the ship. To estimate the perils of their position, it should be borne in mind, that the fire had been communicated by these fearless men to the near neighborhood ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... the mate. Before he could answer, a shot from the brig fired at the privateer showed she was broad awake. Next moment Captain Deadeye hailed. "Have you mastered the prize crew, Mr Treenail?"—"Aye, aye, sir."—"Then keep your course, and keep two lights hoisted at your mizzen peak during the night, and blue Peter at the main topsail yardarm when the day breaks; I shall haul my wind after the suspicious sail ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the Alabama approached her huge but defenceless prey. From her open ports grinned the black muzzles of her six 32 pounders, each with its crew standing round, eager for the word. High above them towered the huge, black pivot-gun, while from the mizzen-peak floated the delusive Stars and Stripes, the sight of which was to tempt the stranger into a confession ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... distance to pull, and their progress against the heavy seas was but slow. At length dawn began to break, and the wreck rose clearly before them. She was a large ship. The foremast had gone by the board, but the main and mizzen-masts, though the topmasts had been ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... replacing the main and mizzen masts of the Neva detained Kruzenstern for five weeks on this island, where he was most cordially ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the jib-boom into the water with its load of demented human beings. The mainmast followed by the board before we had doubled our distance from the wreck. Both trailed to port, where we could not see them; and now the mizzen stood alone in sad and solitary grandeur, her flapping idle sails lighted up by the spreading conflagration, so that they were stamped very sharply upon the black add starry sky. But the whole scene from the long-boat was one of startling brilliancy ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... the tops, taking in the top-gallant studding-sails and the lower and topmast studding-sails were coming down by the run. It was nothing but "haul down and clew up,'' until we got all the studding-sails in, and the royals, flying jib, and mizzen top-gallant-sail furled, and the ship kept off a little, to take the squall. The fore and main top-gallant sails were still on her, for the "old man'' did not mean to be frightened in broad daylight, and was determined to carry sail till the last minute. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... yard was in its place and the sail set and, except for the shortened mizzen, and a ragged hole through the bulwark, forward, the polacre showed no signs of the engagement of the evening before. Two or three men were slung over the stern of the brig; plugs had been driven through the shot holes ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... in there with a fresh bolt of duck, I see!" said the other, in manifest admiration of the texture of his companion's prize—"why, it would spread as broad a clew as our mizzen-royal, if it was loosened! Well, your luck hasn't been every man's luck—for my part, I think this here hat was made for some fellow's great toe: I've rigged it on my head both fore and aft, and athwart-ships; but curse ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper |
