"Afloat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that they were not to fight, stood aloof and disregarded their admiral's signal to engage. The entire casualties among our men exceeded a thousand. Many of the ships were completely riddled by shot, and on some of them the men were employed day and night at the pumps to keep them afloat till they could cross the Channel to our own harbours. Two seventy-fours, five fifty-fours, two gun-ships, and two frigates remained in our hands, but all were so battered that not one of them could ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... agreed Fred, as he glanced at the boat tossing about helplessly, now wallowing in the trough and again rising to the crest of a wave. "But perhaps it may keep afloat till the storm is over. We'll cruise around and look for it to-morrow or ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... gave her Hungarian Majesty that 200,000 pounds of Secret-Service Money;—advice sufficiently Walpolean: "Russian Partition-Treaties; horrible to think of;—beware of these again! Give her Majesty that cash; can be done; it will keep matters afloat, and spoil nothing!" That, till the late Subsidy payable within year and day hence, was all of tangible his Majesty had yet done;—truly that is all her Hungarian Majesty has yet got by hawking the world, Pragmatic Sanction in hand. And if ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... fellows hanging there; now I can only see three. Mind there is another there to-morrow.' And sure enough there was another Greek dangling the next day. 'Captain Hamilton, of the CAMBRIAN, kept the Greeks in order afloat,' writes my author, ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... slight modifications. Nothing came of this any more than of the bill that he started going in 1909. In 1911 he again brought forward this pet measure toward which Congress had so often turned a cold shoulder. Senator George P. McLean set a similar bill afloat in the troubled waters of the Senate. Nothing happened, however, until the spring of 1912, when committee hearings were given on these bills in both branches of Congress. Representatives of more than thirty organizations interested in conservation appeared and eloquently sought ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... first novel has been read, somewhere under the seasoned age of fourteen years, the beginner equipped with inherent genius for novel reading is afloat upon an open sea of literature, a master mariner of his own craft, having ports to make, to leave, to take, so splendid of variety and wonder as to make the voyages of Sinbad sing small by comparison. ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... what I have made myself. Oh, the bitter pangs of an accusing conscience! I need a Saviour mighty to save. I must seek Him. I will. I am on the sea of existence, and I can never get off from it. I am afloat. No anchor, no rudder, no compass, no book of instructions, for I have put them all away from me. Saviour of the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... only to be feted from one house to another, among that class of people who are every where alike. As soon as they appear in society, their reputation as authors sets all the national and personal vanity in it afloat. One is polite, for the honour of his country—another is brilliant, to recommend himself; and the traveller cannot ask a question, the answer to which is not intended for an honourable insertion in his repertory of ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... their first tour proven that the Stanhope Boy Scouts began to talk of other outings which might be arranged later on; and which will be treated of in the next volume of this series, to be called "The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat; or, the Secret ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... have more than a hundred ships. This is to create productive capacity out of which may come many hundred ships, when they are wanted. The faith men have in the maritime greatness of England rests not simply on the fact that she has afloat a few hundred frail ships, but rather on this more pregnant fact, that England, from Pentland Frith to Land's End, is one gigantic work-shop,—and that, whether she turn her attention to the clothing of the world or the building of navies, there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... oars, with whom I descended from the ridge on which I was perched, towards the shores of the lake, where there was a sort of boat, or rather toll-house, at which the pilgrims paid a certain sum before they were permitted to embark for the island. In a few minutes we were afloat; and while sitting in the boat I had time to observe my ferrymen: one was a stupid countryman, who did not speak; the other was an old man with a Woollen night-cap under his hat, a brown snuff-colored coat, a nose begrimed with snuff, a ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... had been ordered to California; that Colonel John D. Stevenson was coming out to California with a regiment of New York Volunteers; that Commodore Shubrick had orders also from the Navy Department to control matters afloat; that General Kearney, by virtue of his rank, had the right to control all the land-forces in the service of the United States; and that Fremont claimed the same right by virtue of a letter he had received from Colonel Benton, then a Senator, and a man of great influence ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... he told them the object of the voyage and his intentions towards them. At first they seemed somewhat incredulous, but when they were shown some of the gold their doubts vanished, and they one and all swore to be honest and true to him and to obey him faithfully whether afloat or ashore, in fair or ...
— John Corwell, Sailor And Miner; and, Poisonous Fish - 1901 • Louis Becke
... they are his forevermore. His "leviathans afloat" he lifted from the "Annus Mirabilis"; but in what court could Dryden sue? Again, Waller in another poem calls ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... accept a permanent office, because he believed that he could serve his mistress better as an unassuming, unnoticed counsellor. Berenike had told Barine that the relations between Cleopatra and Archibius dated back to their childhood, but she had learned no particulars. Various rumours were afloat which, in the course of time, had been richly adorned and interwoven with anecdotes, and Barine naturally lent the most ready credence to those which asserted that the princess, in her earliest youth, had cherished a childish love for the philosopher's son. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sorts of queer and absurd ideas afloat as to the shape of the earth. Some people thought it was round like a pancake and that the waters which surrounded the land gradually changed into mist and vapor and that he who ventured out into these vapors fell ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... if you want to know, a false date on a letter, a single stroke of the pen wrong—that was my whole crime. No, God be praised, I can tell right from wrong yet a while. How would it fare with me if I were, into the bargain, to sully my honour? It is simply my sense of honour that keeps me afloat now. But it is strong enough too; at least, it has ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... with a cover to it, just like a little ark, and this she covered with a kind of pitch, so that not a drop of water could come through. Inside the cradle she made a soft bed, and laid the baby there while he was fast asleep, and set the ark afloat in the water where the bulrushes were growing. She knew that presently the great princess, Pharaoh's daughter, would come down to bathe in the river, and would notice the queer little ark ...
— The Babe in the Bulrushes • Amy Steedman
... M.P.s are afloat on the seas, the debates of the West to control, And the thought of their scheme's a magnificent dream which may calm our disconsolate soul: For if ever the Yanks should return them with thanks and consider their presence a bore, We have plenty of cranks in the Radical ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... when Europe as well as the United States shall be at peace it would not be proposed that more than six or eight of these vessels should be kept afloat. When Europe is in war, treble that number might be necessary, to be distributed among those particular harbors which foreign vessels of war are in the habit of frequenting for the purpose of preserving order therein. But they would be manned in ordinary, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... son of Danae, who was the daughter of a king. And when Perseus was a very little boy, some wicked people put his mother and himself into a chest and set them afloat upon the sea. The wind blew freshly and drove the chest away from the shore, and the uneasy billows tossed it up and down; while Danae clasped her child closely to her bosom, and dreaded that some big wave would dash its foamy crest over them both. The chest sailed ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... the white glare of the motor lamps; people were passing, grooms with dogs and guns and fluffy bunches of game-birds, several women in motor costumes, veils afloat, a man or two in shooting-tweeds ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... half-decked; but she had good high sides, and was provided with water-ways, so that unless the gale should prove of unusual violence, they had no reason to fear for their safety. Though Andrew had lived near the sea, he had seldom been afloat, and Simon had never even seen the ocean before. At first he had been highly pleased with its appearance, but now that he saw the dark leaden foam-topped waves rising up, he began to look as if he would rather have been safe on shore; but he was a ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... tranquility and became a scene of bustle and excitement. Moreover, to the astonishment of the Bosekop folk, the sailing-brig known as the Valkyrie, belonging to Olaf Gueldmar, which had been hauled up high and dry on the shore for many months, was suddenly seen afloat on the Fjord, and Valdemar Svensen, Errington's pilot, appeared to be busily engaged upon her decks, putting everything in ship-shape order. It was no use asking him any questions—he was not the man to gratify impertinent curiosity. By-and-by a rumor got about ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... fate was perhaps as sad as well might be, and as foul a blot to the purism of these very pure times in which we live. Not long after those days, it so happening that some considerable amount of youthful energy and quidnunc ability were required to set litigation afloat at Hong-Kong, Mr Romer was sent thither as the fittest man for such work, with rich assurance of future guerdon. Who so happy then as Mr Romer! But even among the pure there is room for envy and ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... evening. We were talking about Clarian and his picture, at the time,—as, indeed, we had been doing for a month,—and when I mentioned the purport of the note, curiosity rose to the tiptoe of expectation, and numerous surmises were set afloat. I could have satisfied their queries as to the subject and character of the picture, for Mac and I had seen it only a few days before, but Clarian expected us to be secret about it; so I only listened and smiled, while the eager talk ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... the day glad were they all; And when they were at the shore almost, Every ship his anchor let fall, With their tackles they launched many a long boat And over ha[t]ch threw them into the stream; A thousand shortly they saw afloat. With men of arms ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... ships is lying, eight battleships being among the number. We and another transport are anchored in the middle of the roadstead, awaiting the arrival of the other members of the expedition. It is said that over 100,000 will arrive from Egypt. The greatest warship afloat, and one that figured largely in the bombardment of the Dardanelles two months ago, the "Queen Elizabeth," lies a short way off on our starboard. The whole is shut in by steep hills, rough and rugged, some of which must be over ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... simplicity of law which the good Saxons had under Alfred and his successors. The gap is vast, and there is no danger whatever of our becoming too simple; yet this fanatical aim will be so surely imputed to us (in days when such men as Lord John Manners in Politics and the Puseyites in Church are afloat) that it is not needless to disown it even to candid and ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... time to cook them; and the famished soldiers had to set out again, with a few pieces of dry biscuit rattling in their neglected stomachs, and driven to satisfy the cravings of hunger with the acorns that strewed the forests. There was little money afloat, for pay was four months in arrear, but millions would have been useless where there was nothing to buy. The country was deserted; every where the inhabitants fled on the approach of the two armies. Disease was the natural consequence of so many privations; ague and dysentery undermined ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... lords; and, in a word, the first tumult of the restoration being over, the troops of the Allies withdrawn, and the memory of recent sufferings and disasters beginning to wax dim amidst the vainest and most volatile of nations, there were abundant elements of discontent afloat among all those classes who had originally approved of, or profited by, the ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... of light breezes and calms rendered the passage very tedious; but the boats were constantly out, chasing the vessels along shore, and Jack usually asked to be employed on this service: indeed, although so short a time afloat, he was, from his age and strength, one of the most effective midshipmen, and to be trusted, provided a whim did not come into his head; but hitherto Jack had always been under orders, and had always ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... want to see. Hit us suddenly five nights ago. Them palms was bent double with the wind. Lord only knows why my mansion yonder didn't go. After while sort a felt we were driftin'. When mornin' broke there was my kingdom afloat in the ocean cut in two, me alone on this bit and the biggest half gone off ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... pulled stroke-oar in my boat. Our custom, in recruiting labor, was to land the recruiter on the beach. The covering boat always lay on its oars several hundred feet off shore, while the recruiter's boat, also lying on its oars, kept afloat on the edge of the beach. When I landed with my trade goods, leaving my steering sweep apeak, Otoo left his stroke position and came into the stern sheets, where a Winchester lay ready to hand under a flap of canvas. The boat's crew was also armed, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... brook, wading to and fro without the bother of taking off his shoes and stockings, and filled his hat with rocks and sunk it to the bottom for a wharf, keeping his hat-band to tie an unhappy frog to a bit of bark, and setting him afloat as the captain of a slave-ship. When, at length, the struggling creature freed himself from his bonds and leaped into the pool, Dicky played that he was a drowning child, and threw Lubin into ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and sank, and their men climbed on bridge and piling, or leapt into the stream to reach the ships that yet were afloat. Then the storm stayed for lack of rocks within reach, as it would seem, for I saw men hoisting more into the towers as fast as crane and windlass ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... insurrection the Psariotes had been the scourge and terror of the Ottoman coasts. The services that they had rendered in the Greek navy had been priceless; and if there was one spot of Greek soil which ought to have been protected as long as a single boat's crew remained afloat, it was the little rock of Psara. Yet, in spite of repeated warnings, the Greek Government allowed the Turkish fleet to pass the Dardenelles unobserved, and some clumsy feints were enough to blind it to the real object of an expedition whose aim was known to all Europe. There were ample ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... as the friend of their curate, the prejudice which had slowly but surely penetrated the mind of every man against him, and interpreted his simplest action in the worst light. There were some rumours afloat of misdemeanours during his college life; it mattered not whether they were true or false, they were received and encouraged by the credulous. He was a Welshman too, full of evil qualities, and clothed with invulnerable pride, which last idea was unfortunately confirmed ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... Wee' he went to sea In an open boat; and while afloat The little boat bended, And ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... lunching at a fashionable seaside resort with Polly at my side, and An kept bringing us melons, which grew so monstrous every time a knife was put into them that poor Polly screamed aloud. I dreamt I was afloat on a raft, hotly pursued by my tailor, whose bare and shiny head—may Providence be good to him!—was garlanded with roses, while in his fist was a bunch of unpaid bills, the which he waved aloft, shouting to me to stop. And thus we danced down an ink-black river until he had chiveyed ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... they had a taste Of aught to eat, for the cans stayed shut, and a peek-a-boo shirtwaist Was all they had to bale the brine that came in the leaky boat; And their tongues were thick and their throats were dry, and they barely kept afloat. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... impossibility in building and manning any number of ships, but his difficulty would have consisted in forming thorough seamen as distinguished from what we call smooth-water sailors. Napoleon replied that he had provided for that also; he had organized exercises for them afloat, not only in harbor, but in smaller vessels near the coast, by which they might have been trained to go through, even in rough weather, the most arduous manoeuvres of seamanship, which he enumerated; and he mentioned among them the keeping a ship clear of her anchors in a heavy sea. The ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... impossible to get the two brigs afloat; and, as their sails had been landed, it would have been impossible to navigate them. They were therefore burnt; and another smaller vessel, which was so placed that Hastings would not expose his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... that Bonaventure, too, has come back?" the young maidens whisper, one to another; for the news was afloat. ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... nonsense?" Why didn't I tell him he had nothing to do with it, yet awhile? Why didn't I hold up to him those awful examples I could have cited, where poor young fellows that could just keep themselves afloat have hung a matrimonial millstone round their necks, taking it for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... Southern coast to which any foreign ship would think of going with a cargo or for the purpose of receiving one. The naval strength of the Union is as capable of vast and effective development as its military strength; and there is no reason why we should not have afloat, and ready for action, by the beginning of autumn, fleets sufficient to close up the Confederate ports as thoroughly as the Allies closed those of Russia in 1854-6, and the advanced guard of other ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... that these people haven't got a King at all. They have somehow managed to keep the rumour afloat. ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... her visits might have come to the knowledge of that stern, prying, and questioning old gentleman whom she called sire. It may be too, that she feared, if seen haunting Mr. Carlyle's office, Captain Thorn might come to hear of it and suspect the agitation, that was afloat—for who could know better than he, the guilt that was falsely attaching to Richard? Therefore she chose rather to go to East Lynne, or to waylay Mr. Carlyle as he passed to and from business. It was little she gathered to tell ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... to, and in a moment more the captain and his man were afloat and rowing toward the opening of the reef with all their might. Those left behind waited anxiously ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... at his blunders again. He telegraphed to me that a conspiracy was afloat to enact a kind of petticoat government. He meant to tell me some gossip about Madame PATTI-CAUX. Then he wanted me to believe that the "smaller catechism" talked about at Rome was the catechizing of SMALLEY of the Tribune, concerning GUSTAVE FLOURENS. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... United States, Commodore Porter placed him at school at Chester, Pa., where he was taught, among other studies, the elements of military and naval tactics; but in 1816 he was again afloat and on board the flag-ship of the Mediterranean squadron, where he had the good fortune to meet in the chaplain, Rev. Charles Folsom, an instructor to whom he became ardently attached, and to whose teachings he attributed much of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... they never rested. Many counties also that were confined to London by work, were grievously oppressed on account of the wall that they were building about the tower, and the bridge that was nearly all afloat, and the work of the king's hall that they were building at Westminster; and many men perished thereby. Also in this same year soon after Michaelmas went Edgar Etheling with an army through the king's assistance into Scotland, and with hard fighting won that land, and drove ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... hour brought them to the point. The boat lay just afloat, bumping on the sand as each little wave lifted and left her. They sprang out of the canoe into shallow water and threw out the anchor, and then waded to the boat. She had about four inches of water in ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... of July—hot, sultry and threatening rain—had been more quiet than usual. Not a rumor had been set afloat; and the monotony was only broken by a group of officers about the "Spotswood" discussing Bethel, Rich Mountain and the chances of the next fight. One of them, with three stars on his collar, had just declared ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... BRADLEY AT TWIN LAKES or Jolly Schoolgirls Afloat and Ashore A tale of outdoor adventure in which Billie and her chums have a great variety of adventures. They visit an artists' colony and there fall in with a strange girl living with an old boatman ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... consumption, and every other disease, except sudden death—from sun-stroke. But, aside from this, there is an odor from the evergreens, the hedges, the various plants and vines, that is only expressed and set afloat at a high temperature, which is delicious; and, hot as it may be, a little breeze will come at intervals, which can be heard in the treetops, and which is an unobtrusive benediction. I hear a quail or two whistling in the ravine; and there is a good deal of fragmentary conversation going on ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sing your praise of the bounding craft; And the merry sloops afloat, But for easy space, both fore and aft, ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... profession to which he had always been devoted, it was the ambition of Lord Hardwicke's life to continue his naval career, and to complete a period of active service afloat which would have entitled him to promotion to flag rank. He was encouraged in this desire by all his friends, even by those who, like John Wilson Croker, had opposed his return to active service. In a letter written by that gentleman to Lady Hardwicke in 1849, he said: 'I never was very favourable ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... de Montausier came to see me at my country-house; she told me of the general rumour that was afloat at Court. The news, said she, of my retirement had begun to get about; three bishops had gone to congratulate the King, and these gentlemen had despatched couriers to Paris to inform the heads of the various parishes, ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... and bank paper afloat in the United States since the 1st January, 1862, is conceded to be only temporary. The Government is engaged in crushing the greatest rebellion known to history; in doing this, the national expenditures are six or seven fold what ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... His legions, angel forms, who lay intranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades, High over arch'd, embower; or scatter'd sedge Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd Hath vex'd the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew Busiris, and his Memphian chivalry, While with perfidious hatred they pursued The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld From the safe shore their floating carcasses And broken chariot wheels; so thick ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... course of the night two of the pumps were for some time rendered useless, one, however was repaired, and we continued baling and pumping the remainder of the night and every effort was made to keep her afloat.[73-1] Daylight fortunately appeared and gave us the opportunity to see our situation and the surrounding danger. Our boats were kept astern of the ship; a small quantity of provisions and other necessaries were put into them, rafts were made, and all ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... things in his past life that it gave him especial pleasure to recall; and that the faculty of receiving such sharp impressions had now died out in himself, but must at my age be still quite lively and active. Then he told me that he had a little raft afloat on the river above the dam which he was going to lend me, in order that I might be able to look back, in after years, upon having done so, and get great pleasure from the recollection. Now, I have a friend of my own who ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... waxed rich fast, and in the spring of the year wherein the story begins was getting the ship ready for the first cruise of the season, meaning to be afloat early; for then there was less trouble with the wild Norse Viking folk, for one cruise at least. Then happened that which set all things going otherwise than he had planned, and makes my ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... there was no lecture. The Baroness was made to understand that visitors at a country house in England could not be made to endure such an infliction; but she succeeded in levying a contribution from Mrs. Montacute Jones, and there were rumours afloat that she got a sovereign out ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... and I made as queer a ship's company as ever went afloat together; and our little craft—with its cargo that would have bought a whole fleet's lading—was such an argosy as never before had sailed the seas. Nor did even Columbus, when he struck out across the black ocean westward, start upon a voyage so ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... morning saw me afloat again. As I was getting away from the shore a man called out to me: 'Your boat is worth nothing! If you try to pass the third bridge you will go ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... came a new thing. Naani, the daughter of the Master Monstruwacan of that Redoubt had shown to all that she was Sensitive; for she had perceived odd vibrations afloat in the night; and concerning these she told her father; and presently, because their blood moved afresh in their bodies, they had heart to discover the plans of the ancient instruments; for the instruments had long ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... our infantry and artillery, ably assisted by the little "pepper-boxes" afloat, soon put our dusky enemies to flight; and we marched straight into town, with colors flying, over trenches, barricades, and other obstructions hastily thrown ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... much fretting guesswork on her cousin's surmise. She relied too much on Owen's sense of propriety to entertain the idea that he could be forwarding a pursuit so obviously insolent, but a still wilder conjecture had been set afloat in her mind. Could the nameless one be Robert Fulmort? Though aware of the anonymous nature of brother's friends, the secrecy struck her as unusually guarded; and to one so used to devotion, it seemed no extraordinary homage that another ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rumours afloat. Some said that the prisoner of Zenda was dead; some, that he had vanished yet alive; some, that he was a friend who had served the King well in some adventure in England; others, that he had discovered the Duke's plots, and had therefore ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... soon made, and ere many days he was afloat upon the heaving ocean, bound for New York, where he was informed he could procure a sailing vessel direct to Australia, at a cost much less than he could by ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... gleam of a lantern at night. All colour was intensified, though all was suffused with the triumphant rose, which steeped sky and air and earth till they seemed infused with some impalpable wine; and the procession moved through an atmosphere full of refractions and bright edges afloat in the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... precise instructions from Castlereagh, the objects prescribed to him being, (1) the capture or destruction of the enemy's ships, either building or afloat at Antwerp or Flushing, or afloat in the Scheldt; (2) the destruction of the arsenals and dockyards at Antwerp, Terneuze, and Flushing; (3) the reduction of the island of Walcheren; (4) the rendering of the Scheldt no longer navigable to ships of war. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... had the two strong, friendly forces been swept from Jinnie's daily life that as yet she had not the power to think with precision. Lafe she had had every day for almost three years, and Theodore King—oh, how she loved him! Rumors were afloat that no power could save Lafe—her dear, ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... afloat, and one day a Mexican officer called at the camp obviously in pursuit of Apaches from whom he had recently taken twelve horses: but unfortunately the men had escaped. The presidente of Casas Grandes had been advised of the killing of two Americans ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... surplus in the Treasury to great national objects for which a clear warrant can be found in the Constitution. Among these I might mention the extinguishment of the public debt, a reasonable increase of the Navy, which is at present inadequate to the protection of our vast tonnage afloat, now greater than that of any other nation, as well as to the ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... answered, "but any one could lose a hat, simply by looking over the edge of the shaft." Then, as if in proof of the forlorn hope which he himself did not believe; "Harry 's a strong man. Certainly he would know how to swim. And in any event he should have been able to have kept afloat for at least a few minutes. Rodaine says that he heard a shout and ran right in here; but all that he could see was ruffled water and a floating hat. I—" Then he paused suddenly. It had come to him that Rodaine might have helped ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... ashore than afloat,' said Pierston, 'especially in the Channel, with these winds and those heavy blocks ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... session of 1792 rumours were afloat as to a reconstruction of the Cabinet. Early in that year, when the debates on the Russian armament somewhat shook Pitt's position, it was stated that the King desired to get rid of him. Gillray heard of the story, and visualized it with his usual skill. He represented the Marquis ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... had Alaska become American soil than thousands of our adventurers were afoot and afloat for the north. They were the men of "the days of gold," the men of California, Fraser, Cassiar, and Cariboo. With the mysterious, infinite faith of the prospector, they believed that the gold streak, which ran through the Americas ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... who desired neither to toil nor to spin, but only to emulate Solomon in his glory with the least possible exertion. The joyful witness of their ease would willingly have sacrificed to them any amount of the facile industrial or agricultural prosperity about them and left them slumberously afloat, unmolested by dreams of landlord or tax- gatherer. Their existence for the fleeting time seemed the true interpretation of the sage's philosophy, the fulfilment of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... doubly incapable—by education as well as by temperament—of gaining her own living. She was now employed as daily governess in the family of a city tradesman—people, who though they were kindly-natured enough, had as much as they could do in keeping their own fortunes afloat without giving any substantial aid to others, and who had therefore engaged her at the lowest possible salary, such as was barely sufficient to keep her and her ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... convinced of this, Captain Gancy calls out, "Boys, it's no use trying to keep her afloat. Drop the pumps, and let us ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... when she was at her bath, her mother's back was turned, and little Miss Flossie turned her slipper into a boat and set it afloat in her little bath-tub. Then she pushed it about and made believe it was sailing. By and by it got full of water and sank, crew and all. This made her cry, and that made her mother look round. Flossie's shoe-boat was taken from her, ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... small free states—Norway, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, and Portugal—maintaining their homes free, and bearing their flags in triumph for long ages. We will learn from themselves how they kept their freedom afloat amid the perils of centuries. We will salute them as brethren subject to common dangers, and interested in one policy—localisation ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... the ordnance of the Benbow can penetrate armor that would defy the attack of the guns of the Empress. It should be said, however, that the heavy artillery of the latter vessel is capable of penetrating any armor at present afloat, and is carried at a much greater height above the designed load water line than in any existing battle ship, either in the British or foreign navies. The armor being of less weight, too, enables the new ship, and others of her class, to carry an auxiliary armament of unprecedented ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... Means, he was largely the author of the tariff bill of 1890 which bears his name. It was slow work getting the bill through Congress, and it did not become a law till October. The most amazing misrepresentations of it were set afloat, and it had not time to vindicate itself before the Congressional elections came on in November, when the party that had carried ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... and spent that day—and a large part of many days there-after—in working at the wreck, Martin Hastings, inspecting known weak spots, searching for unknown ones, patching here and there, trying all the schemes teeming in his ingenious and supremely sensible mind in the hope of setting the wreck afloat again. He could not comprehend why the old man remained alive. He had seen many a human being go who was in health, in comparison with this conglomerate of diseases and frailties; yet life there was, ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... name go before the convention, Spinney. You must walk out of this room and deny the rumors that are afloat. I propose to have two of these men go with you and stay with you. And if you deny half-heartedly, or if you attempt any more sneak tricks, or if your name is not put into nomination to-day, I'll stand out and declare what is in these affidavits. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... been a weak sister," Graham commented; while he struggled with a wanton desire for a match so that he could strike it and see how Paula Forrest looked paddling there beside him to keep afloat. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... them. Some stopped to gaze, and perhaps, carried a pleasant recollection of the bubbles onward as far as the street-corner; some looked angrily upward, as if poor Clifford wronged them by setting an image of beauty afloat so near their dusty pathway. A great many put out their fingers or their walking-sticks to touch, withal; and were perversely gratified, no doubt, when the bubble, with all its pictured earth and sky scene, vanished as ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... poppy, noons of poppy, Scarlet leagues along the sea; Flaxen hair afloat in sunlight, Love, come down the ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... forward and endeavored to lower her voice. She was a kind-hearted woman who delighted to see every one happy and normal. "I'm very worried about those two, my dear," she answered. "There are all sorts of stories afloat,—one to the effect that Martin has gone off with a chorus girl, another that Joan only married him to get away from her grandparents and a third that they quarreled violently on the way home from church and have not been on speaking terms since. I daresay there ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... palings, a few with elder bushes and barbed wire to fill up the gaps, while at least two ended in moraines of old meat tins and shards of crockery. And between these containing banks wound the canal, shallow and waveless, with noisome weeds trailing on its surface afloat amid soot and iridescent patches or pools of tar. In the cottage gardens not a soul was at work, nor, by their appearance, had a soul worked in them for years past. The canal, too, was deserted, save for one long monkey-boat, black ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... far as eye could reach, the lights of innumerable boats were seen, studding, like rubies, the surface of the stream. Vessels of all kinds,—from the light coracle, built for shooting down the cataracts, to the large yacht that glides to the sound of flutes,—all were afloat for this sacred festival, filled with crowds of the young and the gay, not only from Memphis and Babylon, but from cities still farther ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... thousand pounds. Old Scholey ran in at breakfast time to say she had slipped her moorings and was coming out. I jumped up and made but two steps to the platform. If ever there was a perfect beauty afloat she is one; and there she lies at Spithead, and anybody in England would take her for an eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform for two hours this afternoon looking at her. She lies close to the 'Endymion,' between her and the 'Cleopatra,' just to the ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... however, that the lady thought that, if I were going to speak at all, this was the time. She must have known that certain sentiments were afloat within me, and she was not unreasonable in her wish to see the matter settled one way or the other. But I did not feel like taking a bold step in the dark. If she wished me to ask her to give herself to me, she ought to offer ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... had not happened. You know it rained last night, or if you do not know it, I am sure I do. When I went to bed I laid my watch in the usual place, and going to take her up after I arose this morning, I found her in the same place, 'tis true, but, quantum mutatus ab illo! afloat in water, let in at a leak in the roof of the house, and as silent and still as the rats that had eat my pocket-book. Now you know if chance had had any thing to do in this matter, there were a thousand other spots where it might have chanced to leak as well as this one, which was perpendicularly ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... difficulty in keeping afloat, and it seemed to all those anxiously watching that he might go under before help could reach him. Again the engine-room bells clanged, and this time the signal from the bridge was "Stop"; the boat, ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... thousand passengers, there being no steamer there for them to take a passage home on, and so they had to come here for a start. This filled the little town to overflowing, but as the ship that had arrived was the Georga, one of the largest afloat, all could go if they only could endure ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... leading to Fredericksburg was a large open field extending to the bluff near the river; on the right was a dense thicket of pines and undergrowth. In this we had to form. The Seventh experienced some trouble in getting into line, and many camp rumors were afloat a few days afterwards of an uncomplimentary nature of the Seventh's action. But this was all false, for no more gallant regiment nor better officered, both in courage and ability, was in the Confederate service than the "Bloody Seventh." But it was the unfavorable nature of the ground, the difficulties ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert |
