"Amidships" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dropped into the sea an old sail was carefully spread amidships over her bottom and she was lugged, by her painter, towards the bow of the yacht where, with much grating of windlasses and of temperaments and voices, an anchor was very gently lowered into her and rested on the old sail. The anchor ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... "Discovery Fleet" was only sixty-five or seventy feet long by about twenty feet in breadth, and of one hundred tons' burden; Columbus having purposely chosen small ships because they would be better adapted for going close to shore and up rivers. Only the Santa Maria was decked amidships, the others had their cabins at either end. The cross was painted on all the sails. Columbus commanded the Santa Maria, with Juan de la Cosa as pilot; Martin Alonzo Pinzon took the Pinta, and his brother Vincente (pronounced Vin- then'tay) took ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... remains of one or two old towns, cut in two by the shift of the river-bed, excited our curiosity. So did, from to time, the barangayans, or native river-boats, huge, clumsy, ill-built, and generally with but four or five inches of free-board amidships on full load. These craft look as though they ought to sink by mere capillary attraction. However, people are born, live, and die aboard of them, so they must be safe enough. In the afternoon the river ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... twenty feet long, was only about fifteen inches beam, and of the log out of which she had been fashioned she still retained the tendency to roll over. Mary took the bow paddle, and Stonor the stern; Clare sat amidships facing ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... the day on a sunshiny, windless morning, the Wondership was run out of its shed, glistening with new paint and with every bit of bright work burnished till it shone and sparkled like newly-minted silver. Amidships on the craft, the general construction of which is familiar to readers of foregoing volumes of this series, was a square metal box with small wires leading to long copper wires stretched from end to ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... that if Wash paid more attention to his duties and thought less about his own situation he would be better off. Mark insisted on his going at once into the tiny, covered "galley," as the boys called it, hung amidships, in which were the means of heating water, making coffee, and cooking certain simple ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... with rain squalls. Very ugly sea on. Double reefed the Topsails, reefed the courses and furled the mainsail. At six p.m. shipped a very heavy sea that carried away the bulwarks on the larboard quarter and stove those on the starboard quarter and amidships ... upper cabin filled with water. Through the night strong gales.... Lightning at all ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and sheeted them home and, with anchor aweigh, braced the yards and began to move ahead, the idlers were tricing up the boarding nettings and double-charging our cannon, of which we carried three—a long gun amidships and a pair of stern chasers. Men to work the ship were ordered to the ropes. The rest were served ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... the Serapis our ports were not open on the starboard side, because we had been firing on the other. And as we ran across and loosened those guns, the men amidships actually found they could not open their ports, the Richard was so close. They therefore fired their first shots right through our own port-lids, and blew them off. I was so far aft that my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... however, occurred one of those sudden turns of fortune so frequent in the course of a sea- fight. The Athenian trireme which had been left far behind in the chase, made a sudden sweep round a merchant-vessel anchored at the mouth of the harbour, struck her pursuer amidships, and ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... with chains, we baled them out for the last time, and the vessel thus supported came bodily to the surface. All hands now hauled on the purchases, while the Shillooks, with screams and yells, tugged at four ropes fastened amidships, and we succeeded in dragging the vessel from the river's bed, and placing her upon the new shelf that we had prepared for her in little more than three feet of water. During this time many men had been baling out with large buckets, and now that she was safe, ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... were rare—was an occasion for thankfulness and rejoicing. Directly after luncheon the members of Gunroom and Wardroom made their way on deck to bask in the sun and smoke contemplative post-prandial pipes in the lee of the after superstructure. Forward, in amidships, the band was playing a slow waltz and fifty or so couples from among the ship's company were solemnly revolving to the music with expressions of melancholy enjoyment peculiar to ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... helm and came amidships pale as death. "Lighten her," he cried. "Fling all overboard, or we shall founder ere we strike, and lose the one little chance we have of life." While the sailors were executing this order, the captain, pale himself, and surrounded by pale faces that demanded ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... found that the ship had great way on her, and they knew not what lay ahead, for all was mirk on either board, so that none might see the stem or stern from amidships; and therewith was there great drift of spray amid the furious wind, and frost, ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... into the corral. The only beef in the corral that night was on the bones of a tough and ugly bull, and as soon as the Monarch dropped to the ground from the fence he got into trouble. The bull was spoiling for a fight, and he charged on the bear without waiting for the call of time, taking him amidships and bowling him over in the mud before the Monarch knew what was coming. Jeff was aroused by the disturbance and went over to see what was up. He saw two huge bulks charging around in the corral, banging up against the sides and making the dirt fly in all directions, and he heard the bellowing ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... her. He took all in at that glance, from the patches of sheet-lead nailed over the shot-holes in her side, to the sawed-off stump of the fore-top-mast; and then he remarked the absence of the boat which was carried amidships, and the few men moving about her deck. Ay! he took it all in with that one comprehensive glance, and when he had done, he raised his fore finger quivering with anger, and slowly and unconsciously passed it with an ominous ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... better bring them amidships, captain, and stow them round the saloon skylight. Appearances are of no consequence whatever, and the great thing is to get her in her best sailing trim. If bad weather comes on, we must put half in the bow and half in the stern, where ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... when we left Christiansand; Lieutenant Nilsen, as a former owner of pigeons, was to take charge of them. Then a nice house was made for them, and the pigeons lived happily in their new abode on the top of the whale-boat amidships. Now, in some way or other the second in command found out that the circulation of air in the pigeon-house was faulty; to remedy this defect, he one day set the door a little ajar. Air certainly got into the house, but the pigeons came out. A ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... to carry 30 guns (32-pdr.), with 3 guns in each end and 12 on each side, but no guns in the wake of paddle wheel and machinery. Hatches to give air to the stokehold were located amidships. The Battery was to have been supplemented at the ends of each hull by a Columbiad "submarine gun" (100-pdr.), Fulton's invention, but these were not fitted. Provision was to be made in the fireboxes for heating shot, and a force pump with a cylinder 33 inches in diameter was employed ...
— Fulton's "Steam Battery": Blockship and Catamaran • Howard I. Chapelle
... an enormous spar of some sixty or seventy feet in length, is stepped almost amidships in a kind of tabernacle, and has neither stays nor shrouds, its only visible support being a wooden prop, which a few feet above the deck takes part of the pressure when running before the wind, so that on gazing up at its dizzy height one continually wonders why in heavy weather it ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... their day's work, ready for mud or water or sun, as the case might be. Amidships, on the highest locker on the barge, one of the Kentuckians was flapping his arms lustily and giving the cockcrow, the river challenge of frontier days. Others seated themselves at the long sweeps of the barge, while yet others were ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... passengers came from Connecticut, and she talked with a nutmeg dialect that made her garrulity oftentimes quite spicy. We two sat back to back, and when the vehicle lurched heavily her chignon took me "amidships" (if I may be permitted the expression) with a concussion that felt like the impact of a muffled ball from a six-pound field howitzer. "Goodness gracious, dew git eout of the way and give me some room, ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... moment an old sailor stepped up to the captain. "We have a big hole amidships; we are going down," he said, ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... Captain, who had little girls of his own at home, would walk with her on the deck for an hour at a time, telling her stories which he called "yarns," and which were very interesting. The old sailors would coax the little maiden amidships and tell her "yarns" also, about sharks and whales and albatrosses. One of them was such a nice old fellow. His name was "Jack," and he won Annie's affections completely, by catching a flying-fish in a bucket and making her a present of it. Did you ever see ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... spoke a black cloud of smoke shot up from amidships, followed by a shower of fiery fragments, some of which struck in the immediate vicinity of the boats, and then the glare of the conflagration suddenly vanished as the Sea Dream sank beneath ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... bay, the helm must be kept amidships. The rule of the road, according to English interpretation, is so difficult of comprehension that the above is by ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... carefully in the whispering current, then stripped himself with feverish haste, for the driving call of a hot pursuit was on him, and although it was the cold, raw hours of late night, he whipped off his garments until he was bare to the middle. He seized his paddle, stepped in, then knelt amidships and pushed away. The birch-bark answered him like a living thing, leaping and dancing beneath the strokes which sprung the spruce blade and boiled the water to a foam, while rippling, rising ridges stood out upon his back and arms as they rose ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... boats, after having been well scraped, were secretly greased, and the pintals of the rudder carefully oiled, the weight of the oars well calculated, and the trim of the boats arranged by placing breakers of water fore, aft, or amidships, as it was thought their weight might be required to give ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... to his orders. The largest and best boat had been selected for the commander-in-chief, one sufficiently capacious to receive his horses and those of his staff who accompanied him. Seymour was to steer the boat; Bentley stood in the bow; Colonel Glover stationed himself amidships, with three or four of his trustiest men, to superintend the crossing, and all the oars were manned by the hardy fishermen instead of the soldiers. The general dismounted and walked toward the boat, leading his ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... aft when Mr. Mortimer intercepted her amidships. He held a book in one hand, and two slips of paper in ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... parties were to land. The men gathered in readiness on the main lower decks, while Colonel Elliott, who was to lead the marines, waited on the false deck just abaft the bridge. Captain Hallahan, who commanded the bluejackets, was amidships. The word for the assault had not yet been given ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... appealed, at once grasped the woman, and was about to attempt to drag her under the lee of the caboose, when the vessel slipped off the rocks into the sea, parted amidships, and was instantly overwhelmed. ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... Turks were dead, and the survivors all wounded, and that they might very easily be mastered, called upon Halima's father and two of his nephews to aid them in seizing the vessel. Then arming themselves with the dead men's scimetars, they rushed amidships, shouting "Liberty! Liberty!" and with the help of the stout Christian rowers, they soon despatched all the Turks. Then they boarded Ali Pasha's galley. He had been one of the first slain in the last conflict, a Turk having cut him down in revenge ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and fired both guns in succession, hulled the Agra amidships, and sent an eighteen pound ball through her foresail. Most of the faces were pale on the quarter-deck; it was very trying to be shot at, and hit, and make no return. The next double discharge sent one shot smash through the stern cabin window, and splintered the bulwark ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... their course, were wrecked at Vik. Flosi took in four or five of them with their captain, named Steinn. They all found shelter in the neighbourhood of Vik and tried to rig up a ship out of the wreckage, but were not very successful. The ship was too narrow in the bow and stern and too broad amidships. In the spring a northerly gale set in which lasted nearly a week, after which men ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... angle or partition the cabin extended between the two parallel lines of staterooms running aft through the boat's entire length from boiler deck to stern guards. Its richly carpeted floor gently dipped amidships and as gently rose again to the far end, where you might see the sofas and piano of that undivided part sanctified to the ladies. Its whole course was dazzlingly lighted with chandeliers of gold ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... something aloft went "crack"; a rope unreeved from its pulley and rattled on to the deck; the mizen came down in a heap: the halliards had been cut clean through. The men leaped to repair the damage; it took but a minute or two, but we had lost way; the next shot took us square amidships and tore off a ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... caused by an awful crash. The ship had given a tremendous lurch, when the long-boat, which was stowed amidships, suddenly tore away from its fastenings and came crashing down. It passed within three feet of where the boys were sitting, and completely tore away the bulwark, leaving a great gap in the side, where ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... returned the Captain. "It don't suit my pecooliar build; it would throw too much of my weight amidships." ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... was already familiar with the whole forward part of this underwater boat, and here are its exact subdivisions going from amidships to its spur: the dining room, 5 meters long and separated from the library by a watertight bulkhead, in other words, it couldn't be penetrated by the sea; the library, 5 meters long; the main lounge, 10 meters long, separated from the captain's stateroom ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... flagship, the Ferdinand Max, twice rammed a grey ironclad without effect. Then, out of the smoke, loomed up the tall masts of the Re d'Italia, Persano's flagship in the beginning of the fray. Against this vessel the Ferdinand Max rushed at full speed, and struck her fairly amidships. Her sides of iron were crushed in by the powerful blow, her tall masts toppled over, and down beneath the waves sank the great ship with her crew of 600 men. The next minute another Italian ship came rushing upon the ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... constantly-breaking white caps of the wildly-rolling deep; thus onward sped she, for the full space of two hours, when the wind gradually lulled, and with it the deafening uproar subsided. Presently a young, well-dressed gentleman made his appearance on deck, amidships, and, having noted a while the now evident subsidence of the tempest, slowly and carefully, from one grasped rope to another, made his way to the side of ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... steamer like a great mountain. Her way had been so much checked that she seemed merely to touch the side of the sloop; but the touch was no light one. It sent the cutwater crashing through bulwark, plank, and beam, until the "Coal-Coffin" was cut right down amidships, within a foot of the water-line. There was a wild cry from the men as they leaped towards their destroyer. Some succeeded in grasping ropes, others missed and fell back bruised and stunned on ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... command of the craft, occupying the entire stern thwart; while Ben, with his gun resting on the floor and pointing its muzzles out over the bow, held that end of the vessel. The commander would not allow the passengers who sat amidships to do any work, but said they might talk or sing if they had a mind to. Then the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the pious purposes of the men, glided past on his descent, and sank mysteriously into the sea evening after evening, preserving the same distance ahead of her advancing bows. The five whites on board lived amidships, isolated from the human cargo. The awnings covered the deck with a white roof from stem to stern, and a faint hum, a low murmur of sad voices, alone revealed the presence of a crowd of people upon the great blaze of the ocean. Such were the days, still, hot, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... quickly rigged a gangway amidships, and porters commenced streaming aboard to carry the cargo ashore. Another gangway was rigged aft for the passengers. At the foot of this, stood one of the priest's litter bearers, a slave with a ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... not be supposed that work on the new boat had ceased. Harry's plan, when fully worked out, provided for one twenty feet long and six and a half feet wide amidships. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... piece; and the Spaniards took it, along with two grappling hooks, and brought it to this city. All the above is the truth. This witness said also that the said galley that was lost carried nine pieces of artillery—amidships a large round swivel-gun; at the bow and along the sides, two large chambered falcons; at the stern two more; and at the sides four culverins, two on each side. The chief of Taguima took two culverins, and the king of Mindanao ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... rock, and with such tremendous force that she was already parting amidships; her bows were already under water and the sea was breaking ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... eye over the unwelcome vessel he had boarded. He stood for at least two minutes rooted to the spot. His eye swept over a long, broad deck, the polish of which resembled that of a ball-room floor. Amidships, running from three-quarters aft to three-quarters forward, stood a structure that in its lines resembled, as Charon had intimated, a barn, designed by an architect enamoured of Florentine simplicity; but in its construction the richest of woods had been used, and in its interior arrangement and ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... lounges, or sitting on kits on the floor. Even the steps up which I groped my way to the deck above were filled, while on the deck there was standing-room only and not much of that. Mal de mer added to the discomforts of many. At length I found an uncertain refuge in a gangway amidships, hedged in between unseen companions; but even here the rain stung our faces and the spray of an occasional comber drenched our feet, while through the gloom of the night only a few yards of white water were to be discerned. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of water about her bluff bows. My father and Nat were stretched with a board between them on the deck by the foot of the mizzen, deep in a game of chequers: and without disturbing them I stepped amidships where Mr. Fett lay prone on his belly, his chin propped on both hands, in discourse with Billy and Mr. Badcock, who reclined with their ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... and overbearing of the animals aboard is a ginger-colored mule stationed almost amidships on the starboard side. This mule soon develops the extraordinary capacity of casting its eye over the heaving waste of waters and distinguishing the particular wave that intends coming over the bulwarks long before it reaches the vessel. The historical ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... wharf, a pretty little craft of six or eight tons, with a mainsail and jib. It was a delightful afternoon; a gentle westerly wind swept over a placid sea, and the sky was as clear as the mirror that reflected its exquisite blue. Greenleaf and Miss Sandford took their seats amidships, leaving the stern for the boatman. The ropes were cast off, and the sailor was about stepping aboard, when it was discovered that the fishing-lines had been left behind. Old Tarry was dispatched to bring ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... in no state to be reasoned with or persuaded, and raised myself again to the deck. The men were cutting away all obstacles so as to launch the longboat placed amidships over the depressed bulwark of the brig as she lay on her side, and the captain, after having made a last vain exertion to restore his authority, was looking on at them in silence. The violence of the squall seemed already to be spending itself, and I ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... rain, and the horrors intensified. I bolted down the pit to get some blankets. One glance around was enough, and having seized the blankets, up I came again. Where to make a bed? Every yard, sheltered and unsheltered, seemed to be carpeted with human figures. Amidships, on either side of the ship, there was a covered gallery, running beneath the saloon deck (a palatial empty space, with a few officers strolling about it). In the gallery on the weather side there was ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... raced through the ship, slamming me against my web. The rebound sent us a good two miles away before our starboard battery flamed. The enemy scout, disabled by the shock, stunned and unable to maneuver took the entire salvo amidships and disappeared ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... he said, "yes, sir, I should say that was a real stylish rig-out. Only thing is, that girl is consider'ble less fleshy than Emily. This one looks to me as if she was breakin' in two amidships. Still, I s'pose likely the duds don't come ready made, so they could be let out some, to fit. What's the price of a suit like ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... diaphragm, midriff; intermediate &c 228. Adj. middle, medial, mesial [Med.], mean, mid, median, average; middlemost, midmost; mediate; intermediate &c (interjacent) 228; equidistant; central &c 222; mediterranean, equatorial; homocentric. Adv. in the middle; midway, halfway; midships^, amidships, in medias res. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... ration hold, and got my grappling irons on a cask of milk, and came about on my homeward-bound passage, but something was amiss with my wheel, because I ran nose on into him, caught him on the rail, amidships. Then it was repel boarders, and it started to blow big guns. His first shot put out my starboard light, and I keeled over. I was in the trough of the sea, but soon righted, and then it was a stern chase, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... She rested on the stocks, about three-parts finished, in shape very like a whaleboat, and in measurement—so Captain Coffin informed me, with a proprietary wave of the hand—some twenty-nix feet over all, with a beam of nine feet six inches amidships. And even to a boy's eye she showed herself a pretty model, though (as I say) unfinished, with a foot and more of her ribs standing up bare and awaiting ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a hostile ship it was like to sink her, or at least to drive deep and hold on while the boarders poured up and over her side. In addition to this formidable weapon, each carried four guns right forward, besides a heavier piece which was worked on a circular platform amidships, and when not required for service was stowed by the mainmast for ballast. Each galley had two masts, though they were next to useless, for it is easy to see that vessels so laden and open at the decks were fit only for the lightest breezes, and in foul weather must ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... silence, and then went on deck again. It was still blowing hard, and he went over to superintend the men who were attempting to lash together some empties which were rolling about in all directions amidships. A violent roll set them free again, and at the same time separated two chests in the fo'c'sle, which were standing one on top of the other. This enabled Satan, who was crouching in the lower one, half crazed with terror, to come flying madly up ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... one gets used to sitting perched upon this knifeblade, he is apt to reason within himself that it would be more comfortable if there were just an outrigger or so on the other side also. I had the bow seat, and Billings sat amidships and faced the Kanaka, who occupied the stern of the craft and did the paddling. With the first stroke the trim shell of a thing shot out from the shore like an arrow. There was not much to see. While we were on the shallow water of the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... taken place. When they had left, Solomon only had remained behind. But now there were two figures on the deck. One was amidships. The schooner was too far away for them to see distinctly, but this one was undoubtedly Solomon; yet his gestures were so extraordinary that it was difficult to identify him. He it was by whom the blasts on the fog horn were produced. Standing ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... way." Her captain, seated in the stern, and still in charge of the steering-oar, was the only one occupied in the conduct of the craft. Snowball was busy among his stores,—most of which lay in a mass amidships,— arranging them into some sort of order, and placing each article in the most suitable position to withstand any sudden assault of the winds ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... cut the fish through amidships, in cross-sections, and, removing the segment of spinal column, spread the portion flat upon a plate and serve it thus; the result greatly resembling a pair of miniature pink horse collars. A man who knew not the salmon in his native state, or ordering salmon in France, would get ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... covered space about the loggerhead, a useless appurtenance now, and therefore removed. At night, Jarl used it for a pillow; saying, that when the boat rolled it gave easy play to his head. The precious breaker we lashed firmly amidships; thereby ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... driftwood in half an hour more! She is breaking amidships!" the man beside Jan was speaking again to the poundmaster. "No boat can live in such a sea and ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... were shut off and the locomotion of the vessel switched over to the electric drive of the storage batteries. But their attention was directed chiefly to Navigating Officer Binns, who had taken up his position before a row of levers and water gauges amidships. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... larger than the ordinary galley, and were rowed each by three hundred galley-slaves. They consisted of an enormous towering fortress at the stern; a castellated structure almost equally massive in front, with seats for the rowers amidships. At stem and stern and between each of the slaves' benches were heavy cannon. These galeasses were floating edifices, very wonderful to contemplate. They were gorgeously decorated. There were splendid state-apartments, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... foam. I pass around a great crag just in time to see the boat strike a rock and, rebounding from the shock, careen and fill its open compartment with water. Two of the men lose their oars; she swings around and is carried down at a rapid rate, broadside on, for a few yards, when, striking amidships on another rock with great force, she is broken quite in two and the men are thrown into the river. But the larger part of the boat floats buoyantly, and they soon seize it, and down the river they drift, past the rocks for a few hundred yards, to a second rapid filled with huge boulders, where ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... structure: several breadths of bark stitched together with sinews of the seal, and gathered up at the ends. Along each side a pole is lashed joining the gunwale-rail, while several stout pieces laid crosswise serve as beam timbers. In the bottom, amidships, is a mud hearth on which burns a fire, with sticks set up around it to dry. There are three compartments in the craft, separated from one another by the cross-pieces: in the forward one are various weapons—spears, clubs, and sling-stones—and fishing implements. ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... doctor, and ask for introductions to local grandees who occupied a position in colonial society. She seized the newspaper: a steamer for Canada sailed from Liverpool on Saturday. Ovid could secure his cabin the next morning ("amidships, my dear, if you can possibly get it"), and could leave London by Friday's train. In her eagerness to facilitate his departure, she proposed to superintend the shutting up of his house, in his absence, and to arrange the disposal of the servants, if he considered ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... they passed to a lower deck about amidships, to a room about eighty feet by one hundred and twenty feet, which extended the full width of the ship and up three decks. At one end of this large and handsome room was a raised platform arranged like the Speaker's desk in the House of Representatives ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... attempt to conceal his presence and I despaired of getting him back to shore while his present mood held, although I remembered that the small boat, which had been lowered after we went aground, was still moored to the rail amidships. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... Capt. Mazard. "It will be unpleasant having too many of them aboard at once, anyway. And, in order to have the deck under our thumb a little more, I am going to station two of the sailors with muskets, as a guard, near the man at the wheel, another amidships, and two more forward." ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... whether 'twould rain or fair off; too cold to go off to the ledge cod fishin' and too hot for billiards or bowlin'; a bunch of the younger women folks at one end of the piazza playin' bridge; half a dozen men, includin' me and Cap'n Jonadab, smokin' and tryin' to keep awake at t'other end; amidships a gang of females—all 'fresh air fiends'—and mainly widows or discards in the matrimony deal, doin' fancywork and gossip. That would be about ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the stern portion, in order to prevent it upsetting. The palm leaf thatch (or toldo, as it is termed on the river) over his portion of the boat, shuts out much of the view, while his baggage, piled carefully amidships, and covered with oil cloths, encerrados as they are termed, is under the charge of his active boatman, who, stripped to the buff, with long pole in hand, expertly propels the boat up stream, with many a cry and strange exclamation. The ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... cast aside his oars and dived over the side. The next instant the sharp, copper-bound nose of the tug struck the rowboat fairly amidships, grinding it against the steel side of the freighter, crushing it ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... and went amidships. Out of the tail of his eye he could see that the girl was pleading to handle the ship, and that Carlsen was going to let ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... intended from the very first to get wrecked in one or all of these rapids. For this reason we had distributed forward, aft, and amidships, eight five-gallon cans, soldered air-tight. The frail craft would, we figured, be punctured. The cans would displace nearly three hundred and fifty pounds of water, and the boat and engine, submerged, would lose a certain weight. I had made the gruesome calculation ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... tide was near its lowest ebb, so that there was a piece of smooth water under the lee of the rock, we hoisted out our little "twin" boat. This was a curious contrivance, being simply a small boat cut across amidships, so as to form two parts which fitted into each other like saucers, and were thus rendered small enough to be easily carried in the larger boat. When about to be used, the twins are put into the water and their sterns brought ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... splendid male in the rich red-brown coat of adolescence. The bullet had struck him "amidships" and shattered the hip on the opposite side. From the blood on the trail we decided that I had shot the big boar through the center of the body about ten inches ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... big lake barge, with high bow and stern, and a long, low, cargo deck amidships that was piled squarely and high with yellow two-inch plank. Her crew had clearly been impressed with the need of hurry, for long before she could be worked into the wharf they had rigged the two hoists and got the donkey engines into running order. The captain stood by the rail on the bridge, ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... and was making for the ladder with the soundless agility of her race. I grasped McCord's wrist and dragged him after me, the lantern banging against his knees. When we came up the cat was already amidships, a scarcely discernible shadow at the margin of our lantern's ring. She stopped and looked back at us with her luminous eyes, appeared to hesitate, uneasy at our pursuit of her, shifted here and there with quick, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... on their efforts. A few moments more, and I was convinced that, in spite of all our exertions, she must inevitably go down in a very short time. I accordingly turned my attention to the saving of as many lives as possible. The boats secured in the grips amidships, and the starboard-quarter boat, were already several feet under water, so that it was impossible to reach them, but we succeeded in disengaging the larboard-quarter boat from her davits, a small boat pulling five oars, and dropped her, fortunately, to leeward of the brig to prevent her being ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... took a leap backwards, almost jerking the great iron ringbolts from the sides of the ship, coming down with a jar which made her quiver from stem to stern, sending a shell, smoking and hissing, down stream, towards the Rebel gunboat, and striking it amidships, throwing the planks into the water. "Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted the crew of the Essex. "Hurrah! Hurrah!" answered the soldiers on shore, dancing about and cheering. Another shot came screeching towards them as loud as the first; but it was not half so terrifying. Paul thought ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... asked briskly, after Gilbert Gildersleeve had selected his state-room from the plan, with some show of interest as to its being well amidships and not too near the ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... system is a most decided novelty. One of these screws will be placed amidships, or on the line of the keel, as in ordinary single-screw vessels, and the two others will be placed about fifteen feet farther forward and above, one on each side, as is usual in twin-screw vessels. The twin screws will diverge as they leave the hull, giving additional room for the uninterrupted ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... merchandise, and there was much risk in crossing the wide seas and land to reach it. But he felt it a sacred duty to try and reach it. He ordered ships to be built according to a design of Bartholomew Diaz, the Hero of the Cape, "low amidships, with high castles towering fore and aft; they rode the water like ducks." The ships ready, the King prayed the Lord "to show him the man whom it would please Him to send upon this voyage." Days passed. One day ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... the little gunboats, built in accordance with President Jefferson's plan for a coast guard of single-gun vessels, did a great deal of desultory fighting, which resulted in little or nothing. They were not very seaworthy craft, the heavy guns mounted amidships causing them to careen far over in even a sailor's "capfull" of wind. When they went into action, the first shot from the gun set the gunboat rocking so that further fire with any precision of aim was impossible. The larger gunboats carried sail enough to enable them to cruise about the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... engaged her, firing 58 rounds at a range of from 4,000 to 2,000 yards, scoring a number of hits. Onslow then closed the enemy battle-cruisers, and orders were given for all torpedoes to be fired. At this moment she was struck amidships by a heavy shell, with the result that only one torpedo was fired. Thinking that all his torpedoes had gone, the Commanding Officer proceeded to retire at slow speed. Being informed that he still had three torpedoes, he closed with the light-cruiser previously engaged and torpedoed ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... walnut, or chestnut; the rudder extends 31/2 ft. to 4 ft. below the keel, and, in giving lateral resistance, balances the lee-board, which is thrust down forward under the lee-bow. The rig consists of two lags, the smaller one forward right in the eyes of the boat; the mainmast being amidships. The lug sails are set on long yards, the fair-weather rig consisting of a fore lug with 120 square yards, and a main lug of 200 square yards. There are six shifts of sail, the main being substituted for the fore lug in turn as the weather increases, in a manner similar to that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... of this old Egyptian boat stood a man with a pole to help in steering down the Nile. Amidships stood a man with a cat-o'-nine-tails, ready to slash any one of the wretched slave paddlers who was not working hard. All through the Rowing Age, for thousands and thousands of years, the paddlers and rowers were the same as the well-known galley-slaves kept by the Mediterranean ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... Caradoc, "they will make the hardest fight around the anchor ports and amidships. Which position do you prefer ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... to what had happened proved absolutely accurate. Along the top of the Ertak, from amidships to within a few feet of her pointed stem, was a jagged groove that had destroyed hundreds of the bright, coppery discs, set into the outer skin of the ship, that operated our super-radio reflex charts. The groove was so deep, in places, that it must have bent the outer skin of the Ertak ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... fiery sea-breeze, the Sampson (sixty-four) ran on board of us. She came with such force that she, by the shock, carried away her fore-mast, bowsprit, main-top mast and figure-head. She fortunately struck us abaft the main channels; had she done so amidships, it would have meant the destruction of both ships and of about a thousand lives. Her larboard bumpkin dismounted the eighteen-pounder in the foremost lieutenant's cabin in the wardroom, and in falling clear she swept away both quarter galleries ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... and Jack made their way to their own quarters amidships. Here they sat down and for some time talked over the events of ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... us," said Mr Brymer, coolly, for now that Miss Denning and her brother were safe, he did not seem to mind. "When the powder goes off it will be amidships, and strike up. We shall only hear the noise, and perhaps have a few bits of burning wood come down near. What I fear is Jarette and his party when they take to the boats. But I ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... the amidships thwart of the dingy, with his back to me. But Miss Colton, seated in the stern, was facing me and I could not help looking at her. She did not look at me, or, if she did, it was as if I were merely a part of the view; nothing to be interested in, ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... presence of a large school. The ship was headed toward them, and when within half a mile the mainyard was backed, and three boats, under the charge of the captain and the first and second mates, respectively, were lowered. Their only other boat was a spare one, lashed amidships on chocks. ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... reasonably fast, though she could not hold her own with the Bellevite, or even the Bronx; and you have a pivot gun amidships, and six ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... in the direction of Waldeck. The sea had not yet recovered from the effects of the recent storm; it was still, to use an expression of Willis, "a trifle ugly." Occasionally the waves would catch the frail craft amidships, and make it lurch in an uncomfortable fashion, especially as regarded the ladies, which obliged Willis to keep closer in shore than was quite to his taste. The briny element still bore traces of its recent ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... "You follow instructions, Ole, or I'll fire you! No, sir. After you've thrashed him I want you to bend a rope round him amidships and souse him overside to bring him to! Remember, we fired him once and he would not be fired. The damned sea lawyer quoted the salt-water code to us and said he'd shipped for the round trip; so we'll take him at his word. He's your first mate, captain. Bring him back to ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... and Rose were walking along the deck near a little house amidships and they heard a funny crackling sound—a crackling and snapping like a fresh wood fire. They stopped and ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... from Plaquemine Plantation on the Mississippi River to this distant point. It was about fifteen feet in length, and four feet wide amidships. She was sharp at both bow and stern, and was almost destitute of sheer. There was a little deck at each end, and the usual galvanized-iron oar-locks, without out- riggers, while upon her quarters were painted very small ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... resolved that Lono should be king, Kaikilani was divorced and given to him as queen, for her first husband prized her happiness above his own. Lono built a yacht worthy of this Cleopatra, a double canoe eighty feet long and seven wide, floored and enclosed for twenty feet amidships, so that the queen had an apartment which was luxuriously furnished with couches, cloths, festoons of flowers, shells, and feathers, and containing a sacred image and many charms against evil. The twin vessels ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... climbed obediently on to the deck. The seaman stood close by till the captain and Jean had clambered up after him. A few words in French to his men, then Captain Bonhomme, beckoning to Dan to follow, led the way down the companion. He opened the door of a little cabin amidships and ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... so politely had travelled some distance aft, and found itself all mixed up on the deck amidships, which was a well-deck sunk between high bulwarks. One of the bulwark-plates, which was hung on hinges to open outward, had swung out, and passed the bulk of the water back to the sea again ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... morning of that day, while the ship was in the trough of the waves, and with topmasts shipped, it was struck by a squall of rain and hail, accompanied by great darkness. A thunderbolt, descending the mainmast, struck the vessel amidships. It killed three men besides wounding and maiming eight others; it had entered the hatches, and torn open the mainhatch, with a blaze of light, so that the interior of the ship could be seen. Another thunderbolt fell down along the same mast among the entire crew, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... think," remarked Tom, when he saw Ned turn and start back for the side of the craft, where, amidships, was located the diving chamber. "They're ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... speed and would overhaul her speedily. When within a mile we hoisted British colours, but receiving no acknowledgment, the captain ordered a shot to be fired across her bows. In a moment, to my surprise, a large portion of the bottom of the boat amidships was removed, and in the hole thus exposed appeared an immense brass gun. It worked on a swivel, and was elevated by means of machinery. It was quickly loaded and fired. The heavy ball struck the water a few yards ahead of the chase, and ricochetting into the air, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Presently, along the gangway amidships, comes none other than that accursed Portugal, Pedro the whip-master, who, espying the drooping form of the Frenchman beside me, forthwith falls a-cursing in his vile tongue and gives a prodigious flourish with his whip. Now by reason of much practice ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... maximum draught with full bunkers 7 feet 6 inches. There are four water-tight iron bulkheads forming five compartments; the stern is built very full to protect the propellers. Accommodation is arranged on deck for the captain aft with two spare berths, mate and two engineers amidships, while six white hands will occupy the forward forecastle, and six Kaffirs the after one. For towing purposes she is fitted with one main and two skip hooks secured to the main framing; towing rails are placed aft, while bitts ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... wind-whipped snow; off at the right a dim glow of distant fires was the midnight sun as it shone for a brief moment. One blast, more malignant in its fury than those that had come before, tore first at the blunt bow, then caught them amidships to roll the big, sluggish freighter till her racked framework ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... of a mile the doomed vessel carried way, then came to a sudden stop. As she did so she gave a quick list to starboard, until only a few inches of bulwark amidships showed above the waves. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... masts and a funnel uprose from behind it with a great rake, as if about to fall: a solid, square elevation in the middle bore the ghostly shapes of white boats, the curves of davits, lines of rail and stanchions, all confused and mingling darkly everywhere; but low down, amidships, a single lighted port stared out on the night, perfectly round, like a small, full moon, whose yellow beam caught a patch of wet mud, the edge of trodden grass, two turns of heavy cable wound round the foot of a thick ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... Colonel Harris, when he bought the tickets, had arranged that his family should sit at the captain's table. As Alfonso entered the saloon, the steward conducted him and his friends to their seats. The captain's seat was unoccupied as he was busy on deck. The grand dining-room of the "Majestic" is amidships on the main deck. At the three long tables and sixteen short side tables, three ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... and uses of these boats, the most convenient, and therefore the most common, are the Rua-keng and the Rua-pet. The former resembles in all respects the Venetian gondola, while the Rua-pet has either a square house with, windows amidships, or (more commonly) a basket cover, long and round, like the tent-top of some Western wagons. The dimensions of many of these boats are sufficient to accommodate an entire family, with their household goods ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... ships, and the ship-owners were asking high prices for the use of their vessels; for the Yankee skippers of Marblehead, Captain Manly and Captain Mugford, were darting out from that port in swift-sailing schooners, with long eighteen-pounders amidships, and the decks swarming with men who had braved the storms of the Atlantic and knew no fear, capturing the ships dispatched from England with food and supplies for the army. The ministers had paid twenty-two thousand pounds for cabbages, ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... in the humorous aspect." * He had consorted much with Socrates; at the trial, when it was suggested that a fine might be paid, and the hemlock evitated, it was he who had first subscribed and gone about to raise a sum. But now the death of his friend and Teacher struck him like a great gale amidships; and he was transformed, another man; and the great Star Plato rose, that shines still; the great Voice Plato was lifted to speak for the Soul and to be unequaled in that speaking, in the west, until ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... some forty feet in length over all, broad of beam, covered over about half her length amidships by a raised deck cabin, a cabin that rises above the deck a few inches with narrow windows on the two sides. Two doors from the cockpit led into the cabin. Into this the Meadow-Brook Girls hurried, after one quick look over the trim craft. They cried ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... galley. A shout to the rowers made them redouble their efforts. A yell of dismay arose from the Turkish troops as they saw the galley bearing down upon them, and frantic efforts were made to row out of her way. These were in vain, for her sharp prow struck them amidships, cutting the boat almost in two, and she sank like a stone, the galley, without a pause, making for ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... and bridegroom embarked, amidst the roar of cannon and the waving of banners. A royal tent of purple and gold softly cushioned was raised amidships where the bridal pair were to repose during ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... passengers should approach in a body as far aft as the fire permitted, and then shout together words of praise and encouragement. This was done. Some thirty men and women stood together nearly amidships and shouted in time to the beat of a conductor: 'Hayashi—Banzai—brave Hayashi—you shall have glory and reward—Banzai!' Some said they heard a voice reply 'Banzai,' some heard nothing. Other ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... at all events, that his own position in the ship would be greatly altered. Scarcely, indeed, had the captain's body been committed to its ocean grave than Mr Scoones turned him out of the cabin and made him take up his berth with the apprentices amidships. Owen bore his change of circumstances without complaining. He considered that there would be no use in expostulating with Mr Scoones; indeed, that by so doing ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... by pushing each other head to head. A fighting tusker can lord it over almost any number of tuskless elephants, because he can pierce their vitals, and they cannot pierce his. A female fights by hitting with her head, striking her antagonist amidships, if possible. Once when the late G. P. Sanderson was in a keddah, noosing wild elephants, and was assulted [sic] by a vicious tusker, his life was saved by a tame female elephant, whose boy driver caused her to attack ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... shore a dugout was swimming toward him with infinite grace and smoothness. At the first sight his breast contracted, for it seemed to have sprung out of nothingness—then his heart joyfully leaped up. At such a moment anything human was welcome. A squat little figure was huddled amidships, swinging a paddle from side to side with ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... Crouching amidships, lie held his paddle poised as if ready to thrust it into the swirling water at a second's notice, to stay the progress of the canoe as it lunged toward a threatening rock, or glided too near a roaring whirlpool, where disaster was certain ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... but Koa bellowed, "Do it! The lieutenant's right. It's the only chance we've got to warn the ship. Get the scorpion, Santos. Dead amidships!" ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... The whole space was undivided by partition, but I saw at once that black men and white had separated themselves, the blacks taking the port side and the whites the starboard. Finding a vacant bunk by the dim glimmer of the ancient teapot lamp that hung amidships, giving out as much smoke as light, I hurriedly shifted my coat for a "jumper" or blouse, put on an old cap, and climbed into the fresh air again. For a double reason, even MY seasoned head was feeling bad with the villainous reek of the place, and I did not want any of those hard-featured ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... the captain's lips a horrified shout went up from the bystanders. The wreck, with a crunching sound, was being lifted from the sand. She rose steadily, staggered for an instant and dropped out of sight. She had broken amidships. With the recoil two ragged bunches showed above the white wash of the water. On one fragment—a splintered mast—crouched the man with the slouch hat; to the other clung the two sailors. The next instant a great roller, gathering strength as it came, threw itself ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... passed beyond the pier, the sea struck her, and tossed her like an eggshell, and the deck, from stem to stern, was drenched in a moment, and running with floods as if she had been under water. For a few moments H. and I both enjoyed the motion. We stood amidships, she in her shawl, I in a great tarpauling which I had borrowed of Jack, and every pitch sent the spray over us. We exulted that we were not going to be sick. Suddenly, however, so suddenly that it was quite mysterious, conscience smote me. A profound, a deep-seated remorse developed itself just ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... India is built throughout of mild steel, the stem and stern post, together with the shaft brackets, being of cast steel. Steel faced armor, having a maximum thickness of 18 in., extends along the sides for 250 ft. amidships, the lower edge of the belt being 5 ft. 6 in. below the normal water line. The belt is terminated at the fore and after ends by transverse armored bulkheads, over which is built a 3 in. protective steel deck extending ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... word, generally speaking, means behind, inferred relatively, beginning from the stem and continuing towards the stern, that is, the hinder part of the ship.—Abaft the beam implies any direction between a supposed transverse line amidships and the stern, whether in or out of the ship. It is the relative situation of an object with the ship, when that object is placed in the arc of the horizon contained between a line at right angles with the keel and the point of the compass which ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... went out upon the deck. He did not venture near the forbidden spot astern, but leaned against the rail amidships. He knew he had the right to spend his time off on deck and he liked to be alone. Now and then he glimpsed a little streak of gray as some apprehensive person in a life belt disappeared in a companionway, driven in by the cold ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... draws away, leaving the other with bows staved in. A wild clamour surges up from below, but there is no time to heed that; the men toil like Titans, and the hideous music of prayers and curses disturbs the night. Then the vessel that was hit amidships rolls a little, and there is a gurgle like that of an enormous, weir: a mast goes with a sharp report; a man's figure appears on the taffrail and bounds far into the sea—it is an experienced hand who wants to escape the down-draught; ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... stanch little craft Good Luck and her captain by a wide curve back up the river. The backward journey was slow and tortuous, and twice when the Good Luck turned turtle, submerging Aladdin, he gave himself up for lost; but amidships of the island, fairly opposite to the spot where he had left Margaret, the log was again seized by the right current, and the voyage recommenced. But the same eddy seized them, and back they came, with only an arm stiffened by cold between ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... sea was breaking over her, and every wave washed some of them to a watery grave. In this manner, kindred were separated, while those who remained could only expect the same fate to reach them. Things continued in this condition until four in the afternoon, when the vessel parted amidships, at the fore part of the main rigging, and immediately between seventy and a hundred persons were thrown into the waves. Thus the insatiable ocean swallowed its prey piece-meal. About five, the wreck parted by the fore-rigging, and so many persons ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... ice against the ship being thus removed, she righted herself and lay quietly on her cushion of crushed ice—waiting for whatever might happen next. As the tide lowered, the Roosevelt was bodily aground from amidships forward, heeling first to one side and then to the other with the varying pressure of the ice. It was a new variation of "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep"—one that sent Eskimo babies, the dogs, the boxes, and even ourselves, tumbling ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... fifty feet in a distance of ninety miles. So swift is the current and so tortuous and rocky the bed of the stream that the only navigation possible is by means of bamboo rafts fifty or sixty feet long, with a curled prow. Amidships is a small platform partly roofed over with matting. In spite of the rapids, which at times make the trip vastly exciting, there is no danger save the certainty of getting wet. The scenery on either hand is very beautiful; ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... still Hilda stood by my side. One second later, another shock shook us. The Vindhya parted amidships, and we found ourselves struggling and choking in the ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... were of his bride, who still slumbered in their stateroom amidships. In his bachelor days he never had imagined he could find such contentment as had come with his marriage to Ora. He had fought shy of the fair sex on Earth. Somehow, the women he knew back home ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... in a sweet voice peculiarly rich and mellow. "Old Nick's a toughish customer d'ye see, and a glutton for punishment; wind him, cross-buttock him or floor him wi' a leveller amidships, but he'll come up smiling next round, ready and willin' for more, an' fight back at you 'ard ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the watch gave the alarm of 'a sail ahead!'—it was scarcely uttered before we were upon her. She was a small schooner, at anchor, with her broadside toward us. The crew were all asleep, and had neglected to hoist a light. We struck her just amidships. The force, the size, and weight of our vessel, bore her down below the waves; we passed over her and were hurried on our course. As the crashing wreck was sinking beneath us, I had a glimpse of two or three half-naked ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... without any of the discomforts of drowning. As will be remembered, the obstructionist nature of the Irish soil prevented the City of Chicago from proceeding farther inland than was necessary to keep her well balanced amidships upon a convenient and not too stony bed; and that after a brief sojourn on the rocks she was finally disposed of to the Styx Navigation Company, under which title Charon had had himself incorporated, ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... horror, the Alliance threw a broadside full into the stern of the Richard, without touching the Serapis. Paul called to her, for God's sake to forbear destroying the Richard. The reply was, a second, a third, a fourth broadside, striking the Richard ahead, astern, and amidships. One of the volleys killed several men and one officer. Meantime, like carpenters' augers, and the sea-worm called Remora, the guns of the Serapis were drilling away at the same doomed hull. After ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... line which was thrown to him, and on drawing it up found that it was attached to a rope ladder furnished at the top with two steel hooks to catch on to the bulwarks. He placed them in position, and then made his way very softly to the cabin amidships in the ladies' quarters which had been allotted to his wife. She was the only woman aboard the ship now, so that he was able to tap at her door in safety, and to explain in a few words the need for haste and for secrecy. In ten minutes ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... forecastle, and looked intently down the river. The tide was coming in, so that the vessel, in coming up to her cable, pointed in that direction. But they could see nothing, not a craft of any description. Then Christy led the way to the long gun mounted amidships. He sighted across the piece, and, in a moment more, his mind seemed to have settled on the policy to be pursued in the present dangerous emergency. Perhaps the capture of a steamer under such circumstances was a thing unheard of at that time, but doubtless ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... was said. They thrust out with their crazy little craft into the thick of the ice-flood. Bill, amidships, dug with his sculls in among the huddled cakes. It was clumsy pulling. Now this oar and now that would be thrown out. He could never get a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... delicately cooked and perfectly served, appeared as if by conjury, on a table in the dining-room amidships, and as we ate we watched the glory deepen on the clouds, while the waters, soundless as oil, rolled past our open doors. It was all a passage to the Land of the Lotos to me. How had I, whose youth ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... sat on the veranda of his trim presbytery, looking down upon us, like an image of propriety smiling at Bohemianism. Other craft appeared on the river. A man and his wife paddling an old dugout, with half a dozen children packed in amidships a crew of lumbermen, in a sharp-nosed bateau, picking up stray logs along the banks; a couple of boatloads of young people returning merrily from a holiday visit; a party of berry-pickers in a flat-bottomed skiff; all the life of the country-side was in evidence on the river. We felt quite ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... opposition than they expected, made off as soon as they had got their prisoner, and, as there were plenty of bullets about, the remainder of the patrol, leaving prisoner and escort to follow as best they could, hurried back to their lines. Smith watched his chance; suddenly stooping, he kicked one man amidships, seized his rifle, gave the other a jab with the bayonet, and ran for his life. He got away, but had to lie up until the next evening to get back. For this he was awarded the ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... Roag on this bright summer morning! Sheila sat in the stern of the small boat, her hand on the filler. Lufrath lay at her feet, his nose between the long and shaggy paws. Duncan, grave and watchful as to the wind and the points of the coast, sat amidships, with the sheets of the mainsail held fast, and superintended the seamanship of his young mistress with a respectful but most evident pride. And as Ingram had gone off with Mackenzie to walk over to the White Water before going ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... the shore of the pond they hurried. Sure enough, the Little Susan was gone. Charlie, in opposition to Mr. Bunker's command, had gone aboard and, sitting amidships, had rocked her to and fro until her painter had got loose, and the wind, which blew off shore, had drifted the boat out on to the pond, where she was now visible, with Charlie's head just above ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... wide-spread lower booms at the fore-chains boats were riding by their painters. Within a cable's length of the frigate's black quarter lay a low rakish schooner, like a minnow alongside a whale, with a thin little coach-whip streaming from her main-mast head, a long brass gun amidships, and looking as trig and tidy as a French maid beside ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... next twenty minutes we found that it was the forward end of the great flier which was damaged, and that while she was in fair shape amidships and astern, she would never fly again. We discovered that the three unaccounted-for men of the crew were lying forward, and found that two were dead and one lived—a radio man named LeConte. He had two ribs broken. Half a dozen ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks |
