"Mizzen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yard down, which was a long and difficult job; for frequently he was obliged to stop and hold on with all his might for several minutes, the ship pitching so as to make it impossible to do anything else at that height. The yard at length came down safe, and after it the fore and mizzen royal yards were sent down. All hands were then sent aloft, and for an hour or two we were hard at work, making the booms well fast, unreeving the studding sail and royal and skysail gear, getting rolling-ropes on the yard, setting up the weather breast-backstays, and making other ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... approaching storm, and this happened accordingly. For, by one o'clock p. m. the wind, which was at N.W., blew with such strength as obliged us to take in all our sails, to strike top-gallant-masts, and to get the spritsail-yard in. And I thought proper to wear, and lie-to, under a mizzen-stay-sail, with the ships' heads to the N.E. as they would bow the sea, which ran prodigiously high, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... kinematograph-camera and was getting pictures of the 'Endurance' in her death-throes. While he was engaged thus, the ice, driving against the standing rigging and the fore-, main- and mizzen-masts, snapped the shrouds. The foretop and topgallant-mast came down with a run and hung in wreckage on the fore-mast, with the fore-yard vertical. The main-mast followed immediately, snapping off about 10 ft. above the main deck. The crow's-nest ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... to the derelict they were surprised to note that it was the same vessel that had run from them a few weeks earlier. Her forestaysail and mizzen spanker were set as though an effort had been made to hold her head up into the wind, but the sheets had parted, and the sails were tearing to ribbons in ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was out of question: the Saint Andrew lying well out upon the strand, with never fewer than four or five ugly breakers between her and shore; and so balanced that every sea worked her to and fro. Moreover, her mizzen mast yet stood, as by a miracle, and the weight of it so strained at her seams that (thought I) there could be very little left of her ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... "She've lost her mizzen by the looks on it," said a fisherman, "an' that's more'n good reason for her bein' 'mong the last ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... because it was the wane of the moon. He was an amazing set kind of man, the cap'n was, and would have his own way on sea or shore. The mate was his own brother, and they used to fight like a cat and dog; they owned most of the ship between 'em. I was slushing the mizzen-mast, and heard 'em a disputin' about the salt. The cap'n was a first-rate seaman and died rich, but he was dreadful notional. I know one time we were a lyin' out in the stream all ready to weigh anchor, and ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... ensigns, she had flying at the fore a large white flag, inscribed with the words: 'Sailors' Rights and Free Trade,' with the idea, perhaps, that this favourite American motto would damp the energy of the 'Shannon's' men. The 'Shannon' had a Union Jack at the fore, an old rusty blue ensign at the mizzen peak, and two other flags rolled up, ready to be spread if either of these should be shot away. She stood much in need of paint, and her outward appearance hardly inspired much belief in the order ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... bad weather in my time, but never just in that way. With the mizzen boom we rigged up a fore jury-mast and made shift to hoist a storm staysail to give us steerin' way and rigged up a tiller for steerin'. The wind was whistling like all possessed. It was askin' more than any vessel ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... 21st of January were passed in working extra hard in the unshipping of the cargo and the dismantling of the Halbrane. We slung the lower masts by means of yards forming props. Later on, West would see to replacing the main and mizzen masts; in any case, we could do without them until we had reached the Falklands or ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... breezes and pleasant weather. At half-past four we saw Winerow Point bearing northwest by west. At seven o'clock we took in all studding-sails and staysails, and the fore and mizzen topgallant-sails. So another day passed and another night. An hour after midnight we took in the main topgallantsail, and lay by with our head to the south until six bells, when we wore ship, proceeding north again, and saw Java Head at nine ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... Nevertheless, though nobody could call her a dry boat, she will behave herself in any ordinary sea, and come about quicker than most of her type. She is fast, has sound timbers and sheathing that fits her like a skin, and her mainmast and bowsprit are particularly fine spars of Oregon pine; her mizzen doesn't count for much. Let me mention the newest of patent capstans—I put this into her myself—cabins panelled in teak and pitch-pine and cushioned with red morocco, two suits of sails, besides a big spinnaker that does not belong to her present rig, a serviceable dinghy—well, you can ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fire grew hotter, and their aim truer—down came our mizzen-topgallant-mast, and hung down over our quarter; away went our bowsprit—but we held on till we struck their line 'twixt the 'Santissima Trinidado' and the 'Beaucenture,' and, as we crossed the Spanisher's wake, so close that our ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... death for a man to attempt to stand upright upon the sopping deck, for the huge spar swung shoulder high. The steersman, crouching low by his strong tiller, was doing his best to avoid a clean sweep, but only a small jib and the mizzen were standing with straining clews and gleaming seams. Crouching beneath the weather bulwarks, with their feet wedged against the low combing of the hatch, three men were vainly endeavouring to secure the boom, ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... Mengayu, which, being translated, signifies piratical or cruising waiting-place. The weather was thick and squally, and it was late before the Daedalus and Vestal arrived with their tows, the Nemesis and Pluto, the former frigate having carried away her mizzen top-mast. ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... dangle from her masts. Turner, when he painted his "slave-ship," could have asked no better model. There is no name upon the stern, and it exhibits merely a carved eagle, with the wings clipped and the head knocked off. Only the lower masts remain, which are of a dismal black, as are the tops and mizzen cross-trees. Within the bulwarks, on each side, stand rows of black blocks, to which the shrouds were once attached; these blocks are called by sailors "dead-eyes," and each stands in weird mockery, with its three ominous holes, like ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... up in a wild, confused mass, trying to scramble into the boats. This was made visible by the lightning flashes at intervals, after which everything would become as black as night. I saw that nothing could be done, so I took my station near the mizzen shrouds, and held on there, waiting for the end. While here I saw a female figure crouching down under the bulwarks and clinging there. Partly out of pity, and partly for the sake of having something ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... in a resigned manner; "here have I lived fourscore years on this coast, and, for the life of me, I have never been able to tell a fore-royal from a back-royal; or a mizzen head-stay from a head mizzen-stay. They are the most puzzling things imaginable; and now I cannot discover how you know that yonder sail, which I see plain enough, is a royal, any more than ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... at the pumps; boats given up to the women and children. The good ship—well, never mind the name of ship; have forgotten it—lurches, gives one long roll, and sinks! Remaining passengers, headed by myself, swarm up the rigging to the mizzen-top. High sea, thunder and lightning. Great privations. Sun sinks in red, moon rises in green. All hope gone, when—hurrah, a sail! It is the life-boat! Slung on board by ropes. Rockets and coloured lights let off. The coxswain calls upon the crew to "pull blue," or "pull ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... circle of light, with the two vessels side by side and heaving gently in its center. Captain Beard had been sitting on the gratings still and mute for hours, but now he rose slowly and advanced in front of us, to the mizzen-shrouds. Captain Nash hailed: 'Come along! Look sharp. I have mail-bags on board. I will take you and your ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... instant that our adventurer began his charge. The unknown knight was so sensible of the seasonable interposition, that, riding up to our hero, "Brother," said he, "this is the second time you have holp me off, when I was bump ashore.—Bess Mizzen, I must say, is no more than a leaky bum-boat, in comparison of the glorious galley you want to man. I desire that henceforth we may cruise in the same latitudes, brother; and I'll be d—ned if I don't stand ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... seen that she was a long time "out"; her sails, not yet all furled, were old and weather-worn; her sides badly needed paint; and as she rose and fell with the swell, she showed barnacles and "grass" below the water-line. At her mizzen-peak flew the American ensign, and at the fore-truck the ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each side of the Pequod's quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds, there was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so, into the plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the ship's ever-pitching prow. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the heavens had a portentous look to those who gazed from below; and when the denser fog sometimes furled itself away from the topgallant masts, hitherto invisible, and showed them rising loftier yet, and the tricolor at the mizzen-mast-head looking down as if from the zenith, then they all seemed to appertain to something of more than human workmanship; a hundred wild tales of phantom vessels came up to the imagination, and it was as if that one gigantic structure ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... lays down his life for others as quietly and simply as he fills his pipe. From the rocking mizzen you look down calmly upon the world of men tossing with petty and complex passions—look down with the calm, kindly comprehension of a mature soul which has learned something of Immortal toleration. The scheme of things is ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Rose had the wind on her quarter, her best point of sailing, and she was covered with canvas from her trucks to her decks, from her spritsail yard to her huge mizzen crossjack, a lateen sail. The wind was light, but she was making rapid progress toward the approaching strangers, who, with their larboard tacks aboard, were beating up toward ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... French vessel now threw her lead into the stern of the defender of the flag of the States General and her mizzen-mast was seen to rock like ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... deal," the captain said, "to have time to get down all our light spars. Get ready your small fore try-sail, and a small stay-sail to run up on the mizzen." ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... port fore and after braces, Mr. Broadrick; brace the fore and mizzen yards sharp up, leave the main braces fast, and lay the main topsail to the mast. As she comes to the wind let the jibs run down." He turned to the man at the wheel, "Helm hard ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... fishing and salting were over, a breeze sprang up which freshened to half a gale—before which we scudded under furled mizzen and foresails. The men had now plenty to do, and there was no time for brooding or lamenting over lost hopes. It is mostly during a calm, when the ship rides motionless upon a painted sea, that mutinous and rebellious ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... the Line, at four in the morning, is a fine time to see the stars, if one be but properly awake. Overhead, Orion has reached his height, and is now striding towards the western horizon. The Dog-star is high over the mizzen truck, and Canopus, clear of the weather backstays, is a friend to a drowsy helmsman. The Southern Cross is clearing the sea-line, and above it many-eyed Argus keeps watch over the Pole. Old friends, all of them, companions of many a night watch on leagues of lonely sea. A glow to the eastward marks ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... some distance to pull, and their progress against the heavy seas was but slow. At length dawn began to break, and the wreck rose clearly before them. She was a large ship. The foremast had gone by the board, but the main and mizzen-masts, though the topmasts had been carried away, ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... foresail; the sensitive jibs; the press canvas delicate as bubbles; the reliable main; the bluff topsails; topgallants like eager horses; the impertinent skysails; the jaunty moonraker, were just canvas stretched on poles. All the pyramidal wonder of them, fore, main, and mizzen, were not like a good rider's hands to a horse; compelling, coaxing, curbing the wind, they were utilities. The spinning wheel was a mechanical device. Port was left, and starboard only the right hand. The chiming of the ship's bell was not an old sweet ceremony ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... October day, with waves running in blue-white lines and a capful of wind. Three broad flags ripple out behind Where the masts will be: Royal Standard at the main, Admiralty flag at the fore, Union Jack at the mizzen. The hammers tap harder, faster, They must finish by noon. The last nail is driven. But the wind has increased to half a gale, And the ship shakes and quivers upon the ways. The Commissioner of Chatham Dockyard is coming In his ten-oared barge from the King's ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... by watching when the crest of the wave was on a level with the observer's eye (the height above the trough of the sea being known) either while standing on the poop or in the mizzen rigging; this must be reduced to one half to obtain the absolute height of the wave above the mean level of the sea. The length and velocity were found by noting the time taken by the wave to traverse the measured distance (100 yards) between the ship and the spar towing ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... much larger, and did not belong to Palos. She was called a "nao," or ship, and was of about one hundred tons burden, completely decked, with a high poop and forecastle. Her length has been variously estimated. Two of her masts had square sails, the mizzen being lateen-rigged. The foremast had a square foresail, the mainmast a mainsail and maintopsail, and there was a spritsail on the bowsprit. The courses were enlarged, in fair weather, by lacing strips of canvas to their leeches, called bonetas. ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... his feet firmly on the broad beading which ran along the top edge of the sheer-strake, and leaning his body against the bulwarks, whilst he grasped the outer edge of the rail to steady himself, he speedily and easily reached the mizzen-chains. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... moving, we very imprudently set her on fire before she was clear of the ship's side; and as we were on a wind, it was some minutes before we could get her clear. In the meantime the fire began to blaze up in a very alarming manner under the mizzen chains, where, by the attraction of the two floating bodies, she seemed resolved to continue; but on our putting the helm up, and giving the vessel a sheer the contrary way, as soon as we were before the wind, she parted ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Philadelphia, and we find from the record (American Archives, Vol. IV, page 179) that the day signal of the fleets on February 17, 1776, at the Capes of the Delaware were to be made by using the "Grand Union Flag at the mizzen peak," which was to be lowered or hoisted according to the information intended to be given under ...
— The True Story of the American Flag • John H. Fow
... light projectors, one forward on the upper deck, one on the bridge just forward of the funnel, and one in the mizzen top.—Engineering. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... of evil weather, all their mischances were speedily rectified. In a heavy sea, all their unstable cargo surged about as though it had been liquid, but it always shifted back again before she quite capsized. The mizzen-mast went bodily overboard in one black rain-squall because they were too short-handed to get sail off it in time, but they found that the vessel sailed almost as well as a brig, and was much easier for ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... a few ratlines in the mizzen rigging, and looked to windward, laughing all the time: but, all of a sudden, there was a great change in his manner. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... to overblow, we took in our sprit-sail, and stood by to hand the foresail; but making foul weather, we looked the guns were all fast, and handed the mizzen. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... she did not give the wind. Much surprised in so great confidence in a Moro, and all of us being encouraged, he collected in a short time eighteen pesos, and after folding them in a cloth, he tied them to the mizzen-masthead begging the Virgin to fulfil her promise. The fact was that from that day the wind to navigate (little or much) never failed us, until we reached Cochin. That was on January twenty-three, and on entering the bar there, we met ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... two ships came in sight of each other, and immediately prepared for a fight. Nearer and nearer they came to each other, but not until they were scarce fifty yards apart did the Constitution open fire. Then it was deadly. The mizzen mast of the Guerriere was shot away; very soon the main mast followed, and in less than half an hour the Guerriere was a hopeless wreck. Then the British captain struck his ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... twilight, And the glimmer of the skylight, That shot across the deck; And the binnacle pale and steady, And the dull glimpse of the dead-eye, And the sparks in fiery eddy That whirled from the chimney neck. In our jovial floating prison There was sleep from fore to mizzen, And never a star had risen The ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Our Captain, who was an able Seaman, at the first Signal of an approaching Storm, handed his Top-sails, took a Reef in his Foresail, and the Men were furling the Mainsail, when the Lightning shiver'd the Mast, which was cut away with the utmost Expedition. We lay some time under a Mizzen-balast, but were at last forc'd to put before the Wind, and, for Four Days, we scudded with the Goose-wings of our Foresail, in which Time we had not the least Glimpse of Sun or Stars, but by very short Intervals; nor indeed did I see them, ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... tide high, Captain Pomery found plenty of Water in the winding channel, every curve of which he knew to a hair, and steered for at its due moment, winking cheerfully at Billy and me, who stood ready to correct his pilotage. He had taken in his mainsail, and carried steerage way with mizzen and jib only; and thus, for close upon a mile, we rode up on the tide, scaring the herons and curlews before us, until drawing within sight of a grass-grown quay he let run down his remaining canvas and laid the ketch alongside, so ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... the ship of what was portable and fit to hand out, I began with the cables. Cutting the great cable into pieces, such as I could move, I got two cables and a hawser on shore, with all the ironwork I could get; and having cut down the spritsail-yard, and the mizzen- yard, and everything I could, to make a large raft, I loaded it with all these heavy goods, and came away. But my good luck began now to leave me; for this raft was so unwieldy, and so overladen, that, after I had entered the little cove where I had landed the rest of my goods, ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... midst of the unusual horrors that surrounded him, while clinging to the unfamiliar mizzen shrouds on which in desperation the poor monkey had found a temporary refuge, the electric fire showed him the dark figure of his old familiar friend standing not far off. With a shriek of not quite hopeless ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the Northumberland was a cheerful enough place, pierced by the polished shaft of the mizzen mast, carpeted with an Axminster carpet, and garnished with mirrors let into the white pine panelling. Lestrange was staring at the reflection of his own face in one of these mirrors fixed just opposite ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... rose from by the flagstaff, answered by a shout of defiance from the English battery, as all at once the mizzen-topmast of the Sirius with its well-filled sails bowed over as if doubled-up; but the loss did not check the firing nor her way, and the shrill cheer was silenced. For in the midst of the French elation, and as the course of ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... luckily very smart in taking in canvas, but at one time the captain thought he should have had to cut away the mizzenmast. We were reduced literally to bare poles, and lay-to under a piece of tarpaulin, six times doubled, and about two yards square, fastened up in the mizzen rigging. All day and night we lay thus, drifting to leeward at three knots an hour. In the twenty-four hours we had drifted sixty miles. Next day the wind moderated; but at 12 we found that we were eighty miles north of the peninsula and some 3 degrees east of it. So we set a little sail, and ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... south. Latitude 42 deg. 68'. Distance reckoned to be 136 miles. The English ship which had remained in company until now, left us. It began to blow so hard in the evening that we had to reef the topsails and take in the mainsail, and proceed with the mizzen-sail and foresail. ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... almiranta suffered eleven hurricanes, and all had already lost hope of life. The vessel miraculously made the voyage through the courage of the pilot Toral, and that of father Fray Esteban Carrillo—who, lashed to the mizzen-mast, with a crucifix in his hands, consoled the crew, and animated and encouraged them. He always shared his food with the sick." Of the other two vessels of the fleet, the flagship runs aground ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... learnt his trade under the daring pirate Bannister, who was brought into Port Royal, hanging dead from his own yard-arm. On this occasion, Lewis and another boy were triced up to the corvette's mizzen-peak ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... strolled down to the gun next to Bulger's. It had just been reloaded. He bade the gun captain, in a low tone, to move aside. Then, with a glance to see that the priming was in order, he took careful sight, and waiting until the grab's main, mizzen and foremasts opened to view altogether, he applied the match. The shot sped true, and a second later the grab's mainmast, with sails and rigging, went by ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... the usual visit of Neptune and his wife, who, with a large razor and a bucket of soapsuds, came over the sides and shaved some of the greenhorns; but naval etiquette exempted the officers, and Neptune was not permitted to come aft of the mizzen-mast. At last, after sixty days of absolute monotony, the island of Raza, off Rio Janeiro, was descried, and we slowly entered the harbor, passing a fort on our right hand, from which came a hail, in the Portuguese language, from ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... the candle, and they all retreated to the binnacle, where Mesty took out a coil of the ropes about the mizzen-mast, and cutting it into lengths, gave them to the other men to unlay. In a few minutes they had prepared a great many seizings to ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... the luminous break of a wave. So swiftly it came and went, that it was gone before I could look. A trick of my vision, thought I. No! there it was again, this time nothing but a spark, close by, on a level, perhaps, with our mizzen. So near was it, I wondered whether it might not be the lighting of a match at our own guns. It went again: and as it did so, my finger, almost without my knowing it, tightened on the trigger of my ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... schooner at anchor, and one of the ship's instructors had seen the accident. A mob of boys clambered on the rails, clustered round the davits. 'Collision. Just ahead of us. Mr. Symons saw it.' A push made him stagger against the mizzen-mast, and he caught hold of a rope. The old training-ship chained to her moorings quivered all over, bowing gently head to wind, and with her scanty rigging humming in a deep bass the breathless song of her youth at sea. 'Lower away!' He saw the boat, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... see, father," Geoffrey said triumphantly; "she carries a big mizzen sail. That's what she is, you see; and he is going to show us London, and will take great care of us if you will let us ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... often let ourselves be weather bound, and I am not going to begin it today. We had better house the topmast at once, and get two reefs in the mainsail. We can get the other down when we get clear of the island. Get number three jib up, and the leg of mutton mizzen; put ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... service, I ordered the ships to withdraw to their former moorings." Besides the casualties among the crew, and severe damage to the hull, the Bristol's mainmast, with nine cannon-balls in it, had to be shortened, while the mizzen-mast was condemned. The injury to the frigates was immaterial, owing to the garrison's ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... or, the Litte Key. Bertha. Broadcast. Christ a Friend. Communion Sabbath. Catherine. Cross in the Cell. Endless Punishment. Evenings wish the Doctrines. Friends of Christ. Under the Mizzen-Mast. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... afternoon of that day, a sailor at work on the mizzen-topsail yard of an English ship moored within the distance of a cable's length from the Dolphin, accidentally fell from the yard. As he fell he caught hold of the main brace, and was suspended for a minute over the water. There was quite a commotion on the deck of the ship, which attracted ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... over the tumult, and his boat crashed into the waist of the ship just as Brian leaped up into the mizzen-chains. His feet gained hold on a triced-up port, and as he looked down he saw a swell heave up the two boats, then bring them down together with a ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... cast was unworthy of consideration. The mate muttered such a string of foreboding expletives as augured ill for the delinquent. The boatman was preparing to hold on and fend off at the same moment—a sudden gust of wind gave the boat a sharp buffet just as the man grappled the mizzen-chains—he overbalanced himself, fell, and recovered himself, but only to be jerked backwards into the water by the boathook, which ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... deck, To his mate in the mizzen hatch, While the boatswain bold, in the forward hold, Was winding ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... everyone was too much intent upon the sight before them, one which was grand in the extreme, and lit up the ocean far and wide. The main and fore-masts were blazing right to the very trucks, and as the fugitives watched the mizzen-mast caught, and they could see the flames leap from spar to spar, running along ropes with quite a rapid motion, while great burning drops seemed to keep falling toward the deck. By rapid degrees the burning ship now assumed ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... nearing the head, The great Flag-Ship led, Grandest of sights! On her lofty mizzen flew Our Leader's dauntless Blue, That had waved o'er twenty fights— So we went, with the first of the tide, Slowly, mid the roar Of the Rebel guns ashore And the thunder of each ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... dropped down on the fastenings, dashing the jib-boom into the water with its load of demented human beings. The mainmast followed by the board before we had doubled our distance from the wreck. Both trailed to port, where we could not see them; and now the mizzen stood alone in sad and solitary grandeur, her flapping idle sails lighted up by the spreading conflagration, so that they were stamped very sharply upon the black add starry sky. But the whole scene from the long-boat was one of startling brilliancy and horror. ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... they harpooned one right whale, and by good luck were able. to make her fast to the stern of the ship. "And, if you will believe me, Miss Fountain, though there was just a breath on and off right aft, and the foresail, jib and mizzen all set to catch it, she towed the ship astern a good cable's length, and the last thing was she broke the harpoon shaft just below the line, and away she swam ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... for replacing the main and mizzen masts of the Neva detained Kruzenstern for five weeks on this island, where he was most cordially received by ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... what I would do,' said the captain: 'I would have none of your fancy rigs with the man driving from the mizzen cross-trees, but a plain fore-and-aft hack cab of the highest registered tonnage. First of all, I would bring up at the market and get a turkey and a sucking-pig. Then I'd go to a wine merchant's and get a dozen of champagne, ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... to a dead halt, life sinking in her with the failing of the wind in a sort of dying shudder from royal to course, this was how her decks showed: a man was at the wheel, the chief mate leaned against the rail in the thickness made by the mizzen rigging, and with folded arms seemed to doze in the shadow; a 'young gentleman,' as they used to call the 'brass-bounders,' loafed sleepily near the main shrouds where the break of the poop came. That youngster watched the stars trembling between the squares of the starboard ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... I shaped a course W.S.W. until daylight, but at dawn it fell calm and began to rain, and went on nearly all night. I remained thus, with little wind, until the afternoon, when it began to blow fresh. I set all the sails in the ship, the mainsail with two bonnets, the foresail, spritsail, mizzen, main topsail, and the boat's sail on the poop. So I proceeded until nightfall, when the Cabo Verde of the island of Fernandina, which is at the S.W. end, bore N.W. distant 7 leagues. As it was now blowing hard, ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... thrown away, and commanded Lieut. Morris to point the gun, having more confidence in his skill than in that of the gunner. The young officer aimed the gun carefully, and as it was fired three cheers arose from his crew, as they perceived the pirate's mizzen-mast ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... respecting the hardships of a sea life—what a horrible bore it was to keep night watches, or any watch at all, and you are sure, said one of them, to catch the fever and ague after you have been four hours walking under the draught of the mizzen stay-sail; and, added another, to be mast-headed for three hours with your face to windward by those tyrants, the second and third lieutenants. They both ought to be turned out of the Service for tyranny and oppression, and as to the last he does not know how to put the ship about without ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... the helm!" roared the captain. "Mr Bolton, brace up the mizzen top-sail! Hoist and swing the ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... there with a fresh bolt of duck, I see!" said the other, in manifest admiration of the texture of his companion's prize—"why, it would spread as broad a clew as our mizzen-royal, if it was loosened! Well, your luck hasn't been every man's luck—for my part, I think this here hat was made for some fellow's great toe: I've rigged it on my head both fore and aft, and athwart-ships; but curse the inch can ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... was in its place and the sail set and, except for the shortened mizzen, and a ragged hole through the bulwark, forward, the polacre showed no signs of the engagement of the evening before. Two or three men were slung over the stern of the brig; plugs had been driven through ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... happened in this way: Night, clouds racing overhead, wind howling, royals set, and the ship rushing on in the dark, an immense white sheet of foam level with the lee rail. Mr. P-, in charge of the deck, hooked on to the windward mizzen rigging in a state of perfect serenity; myself, the third mate, also hooked on somewhere to windward of the slanting poop, in a state of the utmost preparedness to jump at the very first hint of some sort of order, but otherwise in a perfectly acquiescent state of mind. Suddenly, ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... ship, which he had thus twice spared, he received his death. A ball fired from her mizzen-top, which, in the then situation of the two vessels, was not more than fifteen yards from that part of the deck where he was standing, struck the epaulette on his left shoulder,—about a quarter after one, just in the heat of the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... point nearly three miles wide, toward the Gloucester shore. Before they had gone a quarter of a mile, a third and larger vessel came sweeping into view, her two rows of ports showing her to be a line-of-battle ship. Barely was she clear of the land when a string of small flags broke out from her mizzen rigging, and almost as if by magic, the yard arms of all three vessels were alive with men, and royals, top gallants, and mainsails with machine-like precision were dewed up and furled, and each ship, stripped of all but ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... of wind stirred the little flag that drooped from the mizzen-peak, and the clamorous, ceaseless-cries of sea-birds, added to the merry shouts and laughter of the men as they followed the restless football, rendered the whole a scene of life, as it was ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... "Guerriere," within pistol-shot, at 6 P.M., when the battle proper fairly began (3). For the moment manoeuvring ceased, and a square set-to at the guns followed, the ships running side by side. In twenty minutes the "Guerriere's" mizzen-mast[428] was shot away, falling overboard on the starboard side; while at nearly the same moment, so Hull reported, her main-yard went in the slings.[429] This double accident reduced her speed; but in addition the mast with all its hamper, dragging in the water on one side, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... a lively air to the otherwise sombre and vacant expression, and beneath the cabin-windows is painted the name of the ship, and her port of register. The lower masts of this vessel are short and stout, the top-masts are of great height, the extreme points of the fore and mizzen-royal poles, are adorned with gilt balls, and over all, at the truck of the main sky-sail pole, floats a handsome red burgee, upon which a large G is visible. There are no yards across but the lower and topsail-yards, which are very long ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... one at the stern, This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists, Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen; ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... and mizzen sheets!" ordered the captain, to bring the yacht round and get a leeward launch for Nos. ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... shipping in that Eastern port, I was left in no doubt as to Hermann's notions of hygienic clothing. Evidently he believed in wearing good stout flannel next his skin. On most days little frocks and pinafores could be seen drying in the mizzen rigging of his ship, or a tiny row of socks fluttering on the signal halyards; but once a fortnight the family washing was exhibited in force. It covered the poop entirely. The afternoon breeze would incite to ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... hull. Her bulwarks had been thoroughly crushed, and so the sea had successively torn away her boats, shivered her galley and wheelhouse, and filled her cabin and hold. Her masts were also destroyed, the fore and mizzen masts being carried away from their steppings, and the main-mast broken completely in twain just above the cross-trees. But a sight still more desolate, as well as harrowing, yet awaited us, as, in overhauling the sail-encumbered shrouds of the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... remained on board; more ropes were hove to them; of these several were officers. Warned by the fate of those who had failed to leap on board the Tornado, each of them, as he caught a rope, secured it round his waist; some springing into the main, others into the mizzen-rigging, thus attaining a greater height. Among them Jack observed one who wore a naval uniform, though he had as yet been ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... glass of wine with me in the cabin?—I should be glad if you would join us also, Mr. Seymour, after the watch has been called, and you can leave the deck. Let Mr. Wallingford have the watch; he is familiar with the bay. Tell him to take in the royal and the fore and mizzen topgallantsails if it blows heavily," he continued, after a pause, and then, bowing, he ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... already, and his hat and wig carried away by a shot, he had thrown himself on to the nettings, shouting to his crew, "The first man who boards that ship with me shall have the Cross;" and how too, the boarding party having been driven back, the mizzen-mast of the Algesiras, cut through by a round shot, fell across the British ship, throwing a comrade of D'Houdetot's, the midshipman of the maintop, beyond it, into the sea, and how that middy swam back to the Algesiras. And then came the story of ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... dexterity in the management of both sails and helm, and some of our braces being shot away, it did not exactly succeed to my wishes; the enemy's bowsprit, however, came over the Bonhomme Richard's poop, by the mizzen mast, and I made both ships fast together in that situation, which, by the action of the wind (p. 105) on the enemy's sails, forced her stern close to the Bonhomme Richard's bow, so that the ships lay square alongside of each other, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... topsails. Still the wind increased, and the seas rose up on either side as if they would overwhelm her. The night was coming on. The captain held a consultation with his mates. The first mate and one of the best hands went to the helm. The main and mizzen-topsails were furled, the helm was put up, and the ship was kept away before the wind. The huge seas followed close astern, roaring and hissing after us. Arthur and ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... of November, and on the three following days 112, 57, and 92 knots respectively. While hove-to in this gale the canvas was severely punished. All the lower sails were more or less damaged, and sail was reduced to storm trysails. Two large barques were passed lying-to under lower main topsails and mizzen storm staysails. At dawn on the 2nd of December ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... board fit for handling ropes. The three ships, on leaving Darien, had three hundred each, including officers, crew and colonists. On August 13th, the Unicorn, commanded by Captain John Anderson, came into New York in a distressed condition, having lost her foremast, fore topmast, and mizzen mast. She lost one hundred and fifty men on the way. It appears that Captain Robert Pennicuik of the St. Andrew knew of the helpless condition of the Unicorn, and accorded no assistance.[14] As might be expected, passion was engendered amidst this scene of misery. The squalid survivors, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... on deck, I found the ship driving fast down Channel, making an excellent passage. I took up my place by the mizzen-rigging, near which there were no seamen at work, so that I could puzzle out a new hiding-place for my letters. I noticed, as I stood there, that some men were getting a boat over the side. It seemed a queer thing to be doing in the Channel, so far from the port to which we were bound; but I did ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... the favoring wind leave the craft. Where the dead whale lay seemed to be a belt of calm between the bark and the coming tornado. And this craft in which my hope was set was really a bark, by the way; I do not use the word poetically. Her fore and mainmasts were square rigged while her mizzen mast was rigged fore and aft like my ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... that is the best way, Tom. We must make the best allowance we can for the wind and the set of tide, otherwise they will never drift a line down to us. She won't hold together long. Her stern is gone as far as the mizzen, so we ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... to the Centurion in this maner, two lay on one side and two on another, and the Admirall lay full in the stern, which galled and battered the Centurion so sore, that her maine Maste was greatly weakened, her sailes filled with many holes, and the Mizzen and sterne ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... and mizzen masts were at once cut away; but the heavy marble in her hold had broken through her bottom, and she bilged. Her bow held fast, her stern swung round, she careened inland, her broadside was bared to the shock of the billows, and the waves made a ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... to the sea, and the swing of the unbought brine— We'll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o' the Line: Till we come as a ship o' the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer, Lifting again from the outer main with news of a privateer; Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Admiralty, Heaving his head for our dipsey-lead in sign that we keep ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... spars and yard-arms; the multitudes of ropes like the threads of a spider's web; flags, streamers, red, white, green, blue, yellow, with devices of lions, unicorns, dragons, eagles, fluttering from bowsprit to fore-royal mast, from taffrail to mizzen. Beneath the bowsprit was the bust of Berinthia, the heart and soul of the man who carved it in every feature, for to Abraham Duncan there was no face on earth so beautiful as that of ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... that we were aback and making sternway. We might have tossed a biscuit aboard the big Serapis as she glided ahead of us. The broadsides thundered, and great ragged scantlings brake from our bulwarks and flew as high as the mizzen-top; and the shrieks and groans redoubled. Involuntarily my eyes sought the poop, and I gave a sigh of relief at the sight of the commanding figure in the midst of the whirling smoke. We shotted our guns with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and by three o'clock as, with a dozen seals in our boat, we were deliberating whether to go on or turn back, the recall flag was run up at the schooner's mizzen—a sure sign that with the rising wind the barometer was falling and that our sailing-master was getting anxious for the welfare of ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... topmast, to the yardarm of the main topsail-yard. Up above it, on a bending light pole, fluttered the great colours, a George's cross of scarlet on a ground of white. Abaft the main-mast were the mizzen, carrying one sail, on a lateen yard, one arm of which nearly touched the deck; and the bonaventure mizzen (which we now call the jigger) rigged in exactly the same way. Right aft, was a banner pole ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... to stoop, without flexibility, could not express dejection. He was very tired suddenly; he dragged his feet going off the poop. Before he left it with nearly an hour of his watch below sacrificed, he addressed himself once more to our young man who stood abreast of the mizzen rigging in an unreceptive mood expressed by silence and immobility. He did not regret, he said, having spoken openly ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Ursuline convent, and furnished new ammunition for the garrison. On the other hand, the decks of the attacking vessels were swept by fire from the cliffs. One shot carried away the ensign of the flag-ship, and another tore away her rigging and shattered her mizzen, and the rest of the fleet ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... that, as may be imagined, we were very greatly excited, and stood upon the thwarts that we might get better view of her. Thus I saw her a great way in from the edge of the weed, and I noted that her foremast was gone near to the deck, and she had no main topmast; though, strangely enough, her mizzen stood unharmed. And beyond this, I could make out but little, because of the distance; though the sun, which was upon our larboard side, gave me some sight of her hull, but not much, because of the weed in which she was deeply embedded; yet it seemed to me that her sides were very weather-worn, ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... to the injury done by him and their better speed—they did that day escape action at close quarters, which could only have ended in their capture. When he hauled down his flag, his three topmasts were gone, the mizzen-mast fell immediately after, and the hull was so full of water that the ship was with difficulty kept afloat. M. de Sabran—his name is worthy to be remembered—had received eleven wounds in this gallant ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... the extent of this damage, we will take the ships in the order they descended. The first had her wheel carried away, and her hull much damaged, but escaped with the loss of only three men. A stone shot penetrated the second, between the poop and quarter deck, badly injured the mizzen-mast, carried away the wheel, and did other serious damage, killing and wounding twenty men. Two shot struck the third, carrying away her shrouds and injuring her masts; loss in killed and wounded, thirty. The fourth had her mainmast destroyed, with a loss of sixteen. The fifth had a large ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... Boulogne is a distance of about forty-five miles, and ere we reached it darkness was closing in, so we took in a reef, as was our wont at night, and lowered the mizzen altogether. This gave us an opportunity of moving along slowly, ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... dejection which took possession of the couple was when they, through the glass, saw the Stars and Stripes fluttering from the mizzen of the ship which came the nearest and then made off again. The sight of that most beautiful banner in the world was like a glimpse of their distant New England home, and they seemed to feel the cool breeze fanning their ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... lifeboat stationed at Deal until the year 1865. Before that time the Deal luggers attempted the work of rescue on the Goodwin Sands. In those days all Deal and Walmer beach was full of those wonderful sea-boats hauled up on the shingle, while their mizzen booms almost ran into the houses on the opposite side of the roadway. The skill and daring of those brave boatmen were beyond praise. Let me give in more detail the incident alluded to in the ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... Hoisted at her mizzen-peak was a red flag, with a turreted white castle in the middle, which looked foreign enough, and made ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the storm, a loud cry was heard, and the crash of breaking timber as, with the shock, the main and mizzen masts, weakened by the loss of the foremast, went over the sides. The next great wave drove the vessel ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... take my watch with the rest of the crew. One morning, some ten days after leaving Bristowe, the captain came on deck at two bells and ordered me to the mizzen cross-trees to keep a sharp lookout, at the same time sending Dilly to the fore cross-trees. It was his practice, I had learned, to give a money bounty to the first man who sighted an enemy if the discovery resulted in a capture, and I was eager to win the prize, not ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... whilst she had her flags fore and aft, running up to her flying jib-boom from the water, and down to the gaff on her mizzen. The frigate had been newly painted, and looked upon this occasion exceedingly well, her neat appearance being the subject ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... the captain,' replied the wretch, 'and put his head at the main topgallant masthead—and we will put the first-mate's head at the mizzen, and the boatswain's at the fore. The other convicts who are not with us in the matter we shall put on shore at some island, and leave them to shift for themselves, they are worth nothing. The ship is a good prize, for the captain has a large sum of money on board ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... later, as the fresh breeze carried away the smoke to the north-east, the crew set up a lively cheer, for the mizzen mast of the chase toppled over into the water, and the pilot house seemed to have been ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... spent on deck, where we had charming concerts. Seldom have I heard better singing than we were favored with by eight or ten ladies and gentlemen. One universal favorite was the beautiful piece, "Far, far at sea." On Sunday, the 13th, just after morning service, conducted by Mr. Cox, we made Mizzen Head, and obtained a magnificent view of the north coast of Ireland, which was far more beautiful than we had expected. The coast is very bold, and the cliffs precipitous, in many places strongly reminding ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... stepped on board his flagship his broad pennant was flung to the breeze from the mainmast-head, the fleur-de-lis of France floated proudly from the mizzen, and amid the booming of cannon and the loud acclamations of the throngs assembled on the quay to bid them Godspeed, the ships moved slowly down the harbor towards the broad ocean and the ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe |
