"Mainmast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fearful gusts, increasing in violence every moment till Paul came to the conclusion that it was no longer safe to carry the jib and mainsail, and proposed to set a reefed foresail. John scouted the idea, but he did not want the mainmast blown out of her, and consented ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the sounds I had heard for what I saw. Certainly I never beheld a deck so dirty. It was littered with scraps of carrot, shreds of green stuff, and indescribable filth. Fastened by chains to the mainmast were a number of grisly staghounds, who now began leaping and barking at me, and by the mizzen a huge puma was cramped in a little iron cage far too small even to give it turning room. Farther under the starboard bulwark were some big hutches containing ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... with their lofty perch a sailor swung spider-like among the network of sheets and halyards that clung about the mainmast, its meshes clearly defined against the pure blue of the sky, while below there, on the bridge, the big brass nautical instruments gleamed, and the caps of the Captain and his lieutenants showed white in the sun. As Blythe glanced down ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... opportunities of power and service. The tree does not decay where it stands, nor does it often fall because its core is honeycombed by disease. It is cut down in the meridian of its strength, because somewhere on distant seas a new ship is to be launched and needs a stalwart mainmast, or a home is to be builded that needs the fiber of strong and steadfast timber. So, I think, with men and women, there would not be so much unsightly growing old, with waning power and wasted faculties, if we attended more strictly to the laws of ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... triple-reefed mainsail and not another stitch. "Why weren't we under bare poles," you asks? Because there was a sea chasin' after us with every wave looking like a whale out of water. We weren't lookin' to get pooped, any more than we had to. The mainmast ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... as he talked, had been regarding Cap'n Abernethy, who in turn was looking at the mainmast. There seemed to be something in the very way Cap'n Abernethy looked at the mainmast which jarred on Mr. Watkins. Mr. Watkins dropped his voice, indicating the Cap'n with a curved, disparaging thumb, ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... ring-stemmed vessel, Bark of the atheling, lay there at anchor, Icy in glimmer and eager for sailing; The beloved leader laid they down there, Giver of rings, on the breast of the vessel, The famed by the mainmast. A many of jewels, Of fretted embossings, from far-lands brought over, Was placed near at hand then; and heard I not ever That a folk ever furnished a float more superbly With weapons of warfare, weeds ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... made down the river, which occasioned her anchor to drag, so that before she brought up she had fallen abreast of the south-east bastion, the place where the Salisbury should have been, and from her mainmast aft she was exposed to the flank guns of the south-west bastion also. The accident of the Kent's anchor not holding fast, and her driving down into the Salisbury's station, threw this last ship out of action, to the great mortification of the captain, ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... staysail sheet to windward; the small boat was launched out of the lee gangway; lines with life-buoys attached were drifted towards the boat, and in less than half an hour the crew was taken off and put aboard the Yarmouth fisherman. Succour came none too soon, as in less than an hour the brig's mainmast went by the board. She cocked her stern up and went down head first. The smack reached close across the stern of the Blake, and the shipwrecked crew exchanged salutes with her. Her speaking-trumpet was used in ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... under the Larboard bow I got people to go under the Ship's bottom, to examine all her Larboard side, she only being dry Forward, but abaft were 9 feet water. They found part of the Sheathing off abreast of the Mainmast about her floor heads, and a part of one plank a little damaged. There were 3 people who went down, who all agreed in the same Story; the Master was one, who was positive that she had received no Material Damage besides the loss of the Sheathing. This alone will be sufficient to ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... deck; the sea was so rough that it was hard for an experienced seaman to make his way, and only those sure of foot and hand dared venture on the rigging. Nevertheless Redfox ordered Willy to climb the mainmast with him to help unfurl the sail at ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... bursting through a crack of cloud, showed a bleak and savage picture. Everywhere was wrecked gear, and everywhere was ice. The sails, ropes, and spars of the mainmast, which was still standing, were fringed with icicles; and there came over me a feeling almost of relief in that never again should I have to pull and haul on the stiff tackles and hammer ice so that the frozen ropes could run through the frozen shivs. The wind, blowing half a gale, cut ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... mother and father, whose windows looked out that way, coming from the study, crossing the terrace, climbing the old oak tree, his face resolute and his hair bright. He began the day thus because there was not time to go far afield before his lessons. The old tree's variety never staled; it had mainmast, foremast, top-gallant mast, and he could always come down by the halyards—or ropes of the swing. After his lessons, completed by eleven, he would go to the kitchen for a thin piece of cheese, a biscuit and two French plums—provision enough for a jolly-boat at least—and eat it in some ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... damaged, both in hull and rigging; the spar-deck and forecastle being swept away, and her main deck blown up in midships, very possibly through the explosion of her boilers. Her bowsprit and mizzen-mast were gone, as was also her fore topmast; and the mainmast, with topmast and all attached, was leaning aft, and so far over the side that the observers would not have been surprised to see it fall at any moment. Loose ropes were trailing in all directions; and the tattered remains of sails still hung from ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... deck, to find a wondrous fair night breathing a sweet and balmy air and with a round moon uprising against a great plenitude of stars. The moon was low as yet and, taking advantage of the shadows, I got me into the gloom of the mainmast where the boats were stowed; and here (being well screened from chance view) I sat me down to drink in the glory of sea and sky, and to wait for chance of speech with Adam. And huge joy was it to behold these vast ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... on which they now were, the Maria Dolorosa, was by this time a spouting fountain of flame, from her bows as far aft as her mainmast. Her guns were exploding one after another as the fire reached them, and added their thunder to ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... resembles the Hebrew word 'Netz,' which means a bird resembling the osprey, or sea eagle. Apollodorus says, that Minos ordered Scylla to be thrown into the sea; and Zenodotus, that he caused her to be hanged at the mainmast of ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... same night a tremendous sea broke over the ship, tearing away all her upper works, and sweeping the captain and six of the sailors overboard. The water poured in torrents into the cabins, and drove every one from the berths. The bulwarks, boats, and binnacle were carried clean off, and the mainmast had to be cut away. The sailors then turned the ship about, and after a long and dangerous voyage, succeeded in bringing her, dismasted as she ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... leaving a long, oily sea, dotted round the horizon with the sails of a dozen fishing-boats. Between them lay little black specks, showing where the dories were out fishing. The schooner, with a triangular riding-sail on the mainmast, played easily at anchor, and except for the man by the cabin-roof—"house" they call it—she ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... killing and wounding about twenty-five in number, seven of whom belonged to the boat, the balance to a barque she had alongside; carrying away the foremast of the barque close to her deck, and her mainmast above her cross-trees, together with all her fore-rigging, bulwarks, and injuring her hull considerably. The ship 'Manchester,' which she had also alongside, was seriously injured, having her bulwarks carried away, her ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... together at the Great Nore, ranging them into two crescents, with the newly acquired gunboats at the flanks. The attitude of the authorities gave the violent mutineers their opportunity. Buckner's flag was struck from the mainmast-head of the Sandwich, and the red flag was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... crowded round the mainmast. Many, eager to obtain a good place, got on the booms to overlook the scene. Some were laughing and chatting, others canvassing the case of the culprits. Some maintaining sad, anxious countenance, or carrying a suppressed indignation in their ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... illustrating the moment in the action at which the mainmast of the Guerriere, shattered by the terrific fire of the American frigate, fell overside, transforming the former vessel into a floating wreck and terminating the action. The picture represents accurately ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... pomp of exquisite distress; Then, too severely taught by cruel fate, To share in all the perils I relate, Then might I, with unrivall'd strains, deplore The impervious horrors of a leeward shore. As o'er the surf the bending mainmast hung, Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung: Some on a broken crag were struggling cast, 660 And there by oozy tangles grappled fast; Awhile they bore the o'erwhelming billows' rage, Unequal combat with their fate ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... hat, and took three or four steps, in obedience to the order—and then returned and made his best bow—inquired of Captain Wilson whether he wished him to go to the fore or to the mainmast head. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... cruel discovery, and as if to heighten its horror to the utmost, the captain, clinging high up the mainmast shrouds, shouted, "Landa-lee! Get ready ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... said, and she walked to the piano which was screwed athwart the deck in front of the polished mahogany sheath of the steel mainmast. It was in her mind to play some lively excerpts from the light operas then in vogue, but the secret influences of the hour were stronger than her studied intent, and, when her fingers touched the keys, they wandered, almost without volition, into the subtle harmonies of Gounod's "Ave Maria." ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... heavy thunderstorm on the 12th, a Dutch East Indiaman, about two cables away from the Endeavour, had mainmast "split all to shivers." The Endeavour was ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... perhaps with a new sense of safety. She saw her husband settled in a place not too wet, and got about the venerable boards of the Judy, looking at the old gear with curiosity, glancing, with her head dropped back, into the dark intricacy of rigging upheld by the ponderous mainmast as it swayed back and forth. Every time the men went hurriedly trampling to some point of the running gear she watched what they were at. For hours we beat about, in a great noise of waters, waiting for that opportunity at the entrance to ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... little dose of this will be better for you than a whole night's sleep; there, take that now, and then eat seven or eight biscuits, and you'll feel as strong as the mainmast." ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the mainmast head. Lord, how beautiful was Thy day! Every waft of the air Was a whisper of prayer, Or a dirge ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... hundred yards away, careening crazily, and drifting aimlessly before the light breeze. The strange green fire had vanished. Parts of the ship apparently had been carried away or disintegrated by the ray or the force of which it was a visible effect. The mainmast was down, and was hanging over the side in ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... were only dressed out in summer, while our family had the means to wear green dresses in the winter as well. But then the woodcutter came, like a great revolution, and our family was broken up. The head of the family got an appointment as mainmast in a first-rate ship, which could sail round the world if necessary; the other branches went to other places, and now we have the office of kindling a light for the vulgar herd. That's how we grand people came ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... approaching, and with not a star in sight, and in no condition to take any reckonings, we made up our minds that we must somehow fight our way through one more night before giving up. The mainmast was a wreck; the shrouds on the port side having been torn from the gunwale the second day of the storm, and the entire deck was one mass of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... pull and the dory rose out of the nest of four others that lay just aft of the mainmast. A hand swung her outboard and she was lowered away until she danced on ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... door Mr. Baker was mustering the crew. As they stumbled and lurched along past the mainmast, they could see aft his round, broad face with a white paper before it, and beside his shoulder the sleepy head, writh dropped eyelids, of the boy, who held, suspended at the end of his raised arm, the luminous globe of a lamp. Even before the shuffle of naked soles had ceased along the decks, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... steps which he had before marked out, ascended to the roof; a difficult feat, which would have been impossible to one whose father was not the master of a vessel, and who had not explored a ship from the step to the truck of the mainmast. It was done, safely done, and without much noise, which would have been as fatal as a fall. As he sprang from the window still to a projecting stone in the chimney, he heard the steps of the whole party on the stairs below. He was not an instant too soon in the execution of his project; ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... wire him a loan of one hundred dollars. For the catalog gave the date of one schooner's building as 1804. He knew it used to be a hard-and-fast custom of ship-builders to put a silver dollar under the mainmast of every vessel they built, a dollar of that particular year. He bought the schooner for $70. He spent ten dollars in hiring men to rip out her mast. Under it was an 1804 dollar. He sold it ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... national flag of Costaguana, diagonal red and yellow, with two green palm trees in the middle, floated lazily at the mainmast head of the Juno. A multitude of fireworks being let off in their thousands at the water's edge in honour of the President kept up a mysterious crepitating noise half round the harbour. Now and then ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... and main masts so wounded as to render them unfit to carry sail, and her bowsprit shot through in several places. Her rigging of every sort was cut to pieces; the head of her rudder was taken off by the fire of the Redoutable; eight feet of the starboard side of the lower deck abreast of the mainmast were stove in, and the whole of her quarter-galleries on both sides carried away. Forty-six men on board of her were killed, and seventy-six wounded.... The Temeraire was built with a beakhead, or, in other words, her upper works were cut off across the ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... so, that I thought she would never get up again. However, by keeping her away, and clewing up every thing, she righted. The remainder of the night we had very heavy squalls, and in the morning found the mainmast sprung half the way through: one hundred and twenty-three leagues to the leeward of Jamaica, the hurricane months coming on, the head of the mainmast almost off, and at short allowance; well, we must make the best of it. The mainmast was well fished, but ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... the boarders poured up and over her side. In addition to this formidable weapon, each carried four guns right forward, besides a heavier piece which was worked on a circular platform amidships, and when not required for service was stowed by the mainmast for ballast. Each galley had two masts, though they were next to useless, for it is easy to see that vessels so laden and open at the decks were fit only for the lightest breezes, and in foul weather must run ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... slackening flood that we cast off our moorings and head up the river with our backs to the waning sunset. Since we tow a dinghy astern and are ourselves towed by the silent yachtsman, you may call it a procession. She has been stripped, during the last two days, of sails, rigging, and all spars but the mainmast. Now we bring her alongside the town quay and beneath the shears—the abhorred shears—which lift this too out of its step, dislocated with a creak as poignant as the cry of Polydorus. We lower it, lay it along the deck, and resume our way; past quay doors and windows where already ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... The two ships fought for three hours, circling and driving southward as they fought, until the twilight and the cloud-drift of a rising gale swallowed them up. A few days later Bert's ship lost her rudder and mainmast in a gale. The crew ran out of food and subsisted on fish. They saw strange air-ships going eastward near the Azores and landed to get provisions and repair the rudder at Teneriffe. There they found the town destroyed and two big liners, with dead still aboard, sunken in the harbour. From there they ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Mizzentopmast. A2. Mizzentopgallant and royalmast. B. Mainmast. B1. Maintopmast. B2. Maintopgallant and royalmast. C. Foremast. C1. Foretopmast. C2. Foretopgallant and royalmast. D. Spanker boom. E. Spanker gaff. F. Bowsprit. G. Jib boom and flying ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the first part of the engagement from shore, the Emden was cut off rapidly. Her forward smokestack lay across the ship. She went over to circular fighting and to torpedo firing, but already burned fiercely aft. Behind the mainmast several shells struck home; we saw the high flame. Whether circular fighting or a running fight now followed, I don't know, because I again had to look to my land defenses. Later I looked on from the roof of a house. Now the Emden again stood out to sea about 4,000 to 5,000 yards, still ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... The mainmast had been cut away, and was towed by a long hawser from the stern, thereby aiding to keep the vessel dead before the wind. Stephen felt that there was nothing to be done but to wait for the end. There were no ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... board, under John Hampton, a guard ordered to allow no one to come on the ship without a warrant from the lieutenant general.[7] Then was published, and as the records seem to show, fixed on the vessel's mainmast ...
— Captain Richard Ingle - The Maryland • Edward Ingle
... the cook and steward—both of whom messed aft—to be trustworthy; so that, with four men at my back, and the blacks below, I felt competent to control my vessel. From that moment, I suffered no one to approach the quarter-deck nearer than the mainmast. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... the port bulwark abreast of the mainmast, gazing out over the sea in a reflective way, and looking quite forlorn and chastened. The crew, in skylarking style, were drawing water over the side with buckets and throwing it down the deck from forward, so that Dinshaw frequently ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... frightened, had not strength to hold it. Away he went, right over the wheel, knocking down the mate on the other side; and the ship taking a heavy lurch, they both went into the scuppers together. The ship broached-to, and our mainmast and mizzenmast went over ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... proceeding. The water hisses, seethes, and boils past the sides as if the ship was under weigh in a heavy sea; thus when the little vessel reached our bows there was nothing to save her. Fortunately she came down upon us in such a manner that she escaped with the loss of mainmast and sail, whilst a little damage was done to our head-gear ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... expected before long to sight the Indian coast. One morning, about two bells, the lookout reported a small vessel on the larboard bow, laboring heavily. The captain took a long look at it through his perspective glass, and made out that it was a two-masted grab; the mainmast was gone. ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... high out of the water that it rose conspicuously above the wrecks lying thereabouts; but to make her still more conspicuous I roused out a couple of French flags and an American flag from her signal-chest and set them at her three mastheads—giving to our own colors the place of honor on the mainmast—and so made her quite unmistakable from as far off as I could see her through the haze. And as a still farther precaution against losing myself I hunted up a hatchet to take along with me to blaze my way. All of which matters being ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... the sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the mainmast head Lord, how beautiful was Thy day! Every waft of the air Was a whisper of prayer, Or a ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... of these war-ships or prizes had, for me, the interest that attached to a large black two-masted steamer of eighteen hundred tons, which was lying at anchor off the government wharf, flying from her mainmast-head a white flag emblazoned with the red Greek cross of the Geneva Convention. It was the steamship State of Texas, of the Mallory line, chartered by the American National Red Cross to carry to Cuba supplies for the starving ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... helmsman committed the indiscretion of confiding the helm to a ship's boy. About midnight when off Cape Haitien, near their destination, the vessel was caught in a current and swept upon a sandbank where she began to keel over. During the confusion which followed, Columbus had the mainmast chopped down but all efforts to right the ship were in vain, and Columbus and the crew were obliged to take refuge ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... succeeded; and our fellows spent a merry morning and afternoon with the other, boarding her and running the king's flag to the top of her mainmast. ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... land of miracle—and printer's ink began to pall. Henry George was a sailor; every part of a sailing ship was to him familiar—from bilge- water to pennant, from bowsprit to sternpost. He could swab the mainmast, reef the topsail in a squall, preside in the cook's-galley, or if the mate were drunk and the captain ashore he could take charge of the ship, put for open sea and ride out the storm ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the Jesuits to consult with them as to what measures should be taken. In the meantime the English fleet was steadily approaching, and at length drew up at a certain distance from the city. A shallop was then sent out from the admiral's ship, carrying at her mainmast a white flag. Champlain caused a similar flag to be run up over the fort, and Kirke's emissary came ashore and presented to Champlain ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... four hours' sail Geoffrey and Lionel acquired much nautical knowledge. They learned the difference between the mainmast and the mizzen, found that all the strong ropes that kept the masts erect and stiff were called stays, that the ropes that hoist sails are called halliards, and that sheets is the name given to the ropes that restrain the sails at the lower corner, and are used to haul them in more ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... off, and clinging to the mainmast, leaned his cheek against it and closed his eyes. He opened them again at the sound of voices, and drew himself up as he saw the second officer coming along with a stern-visaged ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... There was the mainmast, fifteen inches in diameter at what was now the butt, still sixty-five feet in length, and weighing, I roughly calculated, at least three thousand pounds. And then came the foremast, larger in diameter, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... torpedo struck I attempted to send out an "S. O. S." message by radio, but the mainmast was carried away, antennae falling, and all electric power had failed. I then tried to have the gun-sight lighting batteries connected up in an effort to send out a low-power message with them, but it was at once evident that this would not be practicable ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... caught in the very act. A war of words ensued; but the explanations given under the attendant circumstances were so unsatisfactory, that the vigilant chief of the customs clapped his broad mark on the mainmast, and seized the vessel and the unfortunate cask of rum in the name and ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... away to the coast of Ireland, and we put in at Kinsdale. We remained there about thirteen days, got some refreshment on shore, and put to sea again, though we met with very bad weather again, in which the ship sprung her mainmast, as they called it, for I knew not what they meant. But we got at last into Milford Haven, in Wales, where, though it was remote from our port, yet having my foot safe upon the firm ground of my native country, the isle of Britain, I resolved to venture it no more ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... [6] wrote to your Majesty in duplicate, giving information of all the events which had happened here. It pleased God that the flagship should return to port, after having suffered from a tempest during which it was obliged to cut off the mainmast. It returned to this port today, four months after it had left it, although without any loss of the property which it carried, [Marginal note: "Let him be informed that this letter has been received and that the council has been ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... now shinin' hot enough to bake bread. We couldn't go below much, fur there was a pretty good swell on the sea, an' things was floatin' about so's to make it dangerous. But we fished out a piece of canvas, which we rigged up ag'in' the stump of the mainmast so that we could have somethin' that we could sit down an' grumble under. What struck us all the hardest was that the bark was loaded with a whole cargo of jolly things to eat, which was just as good as ever they was, fur the water couldn't git through the tin cans in ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... Philip, "can that refer to—?" and Philip walked a step or two forward, so as to conceal himself behind the mainmast, hoping to obtain some information, should they continue the conversation. In ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... nine o'clock in the morning, in very clear weather, were installed on the booms of the mizzen-topmast. Thence they looked down on the whole ship and a portion of the ocean in a largo circumference. Behind, the perimeter of the horizon was broken to their eyes, only by the mainmast, carrying brigantine and fore-staff. That beacon hid from them a part of the sea and the sky. In the front, they saw the bowsprit stretching over the waves, with its three jibs, which were hauled tightly, spread out like three great unequal wings. Underneath rounded the foremast, and ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... a terrible naval battle between the English and the Dutch, the English flag-ship, commanded by Admiral Narborough, was drawn into the thickest of the fight. Two masts were soon shot away, and the mainmast fell with a fearful crash upon the deck. Admiral Narborough saw that all was lost unless he could bring up his ships from the right. Hastily scrawling an order, he called for volunteers to swim across the boiling water, under the hail of shot and shell. A dozen sailors at once offered their services, ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... left harbor when she was dismasted in a squall. He was obliged to cross to another ship, under command of his brother, the Adelantado. She also was unfortunate. Her mainmast was sprung in a storm, and she could not go on ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... ten men wounded in this last attack, but none killed; and the mainmast was much damaged, and ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... though he was far from remaining silent, and Royson, never at a loss when rapidity of thought and action was demanded, took the lead. He woke up the crew with a string of orders, rushed from foremast to mainmast and back to the bows again to see that the men hauled the right ropes and set the sails in the right way, and, had the Aphrodite bowling along under canvas in less than two minutes after the stopping of the screw. Not until every sheet was drawing and the yacht running free did it occur ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... lay broadside on under a weather-cloth, the ocean poured over her, and we did not care. We turned those handles, and had the eyes of idiots. As soon as we had crawled on deck I used to take a round turn with a rope about the men, the pumps, and the mainmast, and we turned, we turned incessantly, with the water to our waists, to our necks, over our heads. It was all one. We had forgotten how ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... violence, the bowsprit was carried away close to the gammoning, and the foremast and main-topmast immediately followed it over the side. The wreck was quickly cleared; and, by the greatest activity and energy on the part of the officers and men, the mainyard and mainmast were saved, the latter having been endangered by the foremast falling across the stay, and the former by the wreck of the main-topmast and top-sail-yard lying upon it. Notwithstanding the continuance of the gale, and the uneasy motion of the ship for the next two days, we ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the search was not long. The Shiner hailed from Gloucester and was "the real thing," as Colin said under his breath. One hundred and twelve feet long she was, with an air, as she sat on the water, of knowing every little wickedness of the ocean and understanding the way to conquer it too; her mainmast cleared eighty-five feet, and was stepped well forward, with a boom that Colin did not overestimate greatly when he put it at eighty feet. Although the boy was not a keen judge, he thought the bowsprit immensely long, and noticed what a narrow ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... mass of sand-laden foaming water appeared then suddenly to rise before her with a towering crest; she heard one loud cry of terror from different voices; the brig seemed lifted high in the air; the mainmast tottered; and a suffocating deluge of water came crashing down upon her, nearly carrying her with it down the cabin stairs, where she was clinging. Again and again it came, and her one thought ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... the starboard quarter and we on the larboard side. The marines kept up a constant discharge of their muskets, and fired with much effect on the foremost of the enemy. We soon gained her deck, and found about twenty-five of her crew ready to oppose us abaft her mainmast. The man who appeared to be the captain waved his cutlass and encouraged his men to attack us; at the same time he sprang forward, and about twelve followed him, when the conflict became general. I was knocked down on my knees. ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... which the floor was covered. Upon the forecastle stands Farmer Hayseed (Oates) chewing a straw with the greatest composure, and waiting until the hay shall fall at his feet, at which time he will feed it to his ponies. This crow's nest, which was a barrel lashed to the top of the mainmast, to which entrance was gained by a hinged trap-door, shielded the occupant from most of the wind. I am not sure that the steersman did not have the most uninviting job, but hot cocoa is a most comforting drink and there was always plenty to ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... merchantman, which in turn was almost foul of us. In less than five minutes the clipper sank. One man alone reappeared on the surface. He was so close, that from where I was holding on and crouching under the lee of the mainmast I could see the expression of his face. He was a splendidly built man, and his strength and activity must have been prodigious. He clung to the cable of the merchantman, which he had managed to clasp. As the vessel reared between the seas he gained a few feet before ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... explained to persons not familiar with ships, that the sailors' quarters are in the forward part of the ship where they (the sailors) are supposed to be found after working-hours, in port, coming never abaft the mainmast; hence the term "before ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... funeral procession, of which we formed the mainmast, almost entirely disappeared from our mind, to be succeeded by the spirit of revolt against this impious persecution as these things came before us. What have our people done to these colonists, we asked, that is so utterly ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... and then I'll go on with my own story. Fingal, you must know, was a giant himself, and no fool of one, and any one that affronted him was as sure of a bating, as I am to keep the middle watch to-night. But there was a giant in Scotland as tall as the mainmast, more or less, as we say when we a'n't quite sure, as it saves telling more lies than there's occasion for. Well, this Scotch giant heard of Fingal, and how he had beaten everybody, and he said, 'Who is this Fingal? By Jasus,' says he in Scotch, 'I'll just walk over and ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... admiral under the very guns of two men-of-war, captured his ship, though she was armed with eight guns and manned with threescore men, and would have got her safely away, only that having to put on sail, their mainmast went by the board, whereupon the men-of-war came up with them, and the ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... Father Ignatius, then the vessel ceased to drift. Thus invoking him in every danger—as they frequently did, both religious and laymen—the Lord again bestowed upon them a special favor; for when the mainmast fell, which they were obliged to cut, its fall was not, as they feared, such as to sink the vessel, inasmuch as the yard and the topsail, falling upon the rocks, served as a support, and on that side held back the ship so ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... heavily loaded and built up, except those that had to be used in pulling the others ashore. Dr. Geddie, Mr. Mathieson, Mrs. Paton, and I were perched among the boxes on the John Knox, and had to hold on as best we could. On sheering off from the F. P. Sage, one of her davits caught and broke the mainmast of the little John Knox by the deck; and I saved my wife from being crushed to death by its fall, through managing to swing her instantaneously aside in an apparently impossible manner. It did graze Mr. Mathieson, but he was not hurt. The ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... moment," Ned Land answered, "when some frigate that's faster or smarter than the Abraham Lincoln captures this den of buccaneers, then hangs all of us by the neck from the tip of a mainmast yardarm!" ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... was that Jerry, when he chanced upon the wild-dog stowed shrewdly away from the wind in the lee-corner made by the mainmast and the cabin skylight, did not stop to consider whether the creature was bigger or fiercer than he. All he knew was that it was the ancient enemy—the wild- dog that had not come in to the fires of man. With a wild paean of joy ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... now, as we looked ahead, All for'ard, the long white deck Was growing a strange dull red,... Red from mainmast to bitts! Red on bulwark and wale,— Red by combing and hatch,— Red o'er netting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... the taffrail as it came up out of the breakers, wet but welcome. "Pass it around the mainmast, Scraggsy," Mr. Gibney cautioned. "If we make fast to the towin' bits, the first jerk'll pull the anchor bolts ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... had been on the point of trying to join von Ludwig and Jack, saw the strategy of this plan and stooped down behind the guns. The lookout forward also stepped behind the mainmast, where he began to blaze away at the foe. The man aft, by a dash, succeeded in reaching the side of von Ludwig ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... of the center boards, or other equivalent devices for the same specific purpose, in the extreme bow and stern of vessels, that is to say, the placing of the said boards forward of the foremast or aft of the mainmast, in two masted vessels, and forward of the foremast and aft of the mizzen mast in three masted vessels, substantially as shown and described, and for the objects and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... They carried very few guns, generally from six to twelve or fourteen, the corsairs believing that four muskets did more execution than one cannon.[108] The buccaneers sometimes used brigantines, vessels with two masts, the fore or mizzenmast being square-rigged with two sails and the mainmast rigged like that of a barque. The corsair at Martinique of whom Labat speaks was captain of a corvette, a boat like a brigantine, except that all the sails were square-rigged. At the beginning of a voyage the freebooters were generally so crowded in their small ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... other than superstitious or religious? The hamper of ropes that clung round the mainmast seemed to gibber like a man in fever as the gale threaded the mazes; the hollow down-draught from the foresail cried in boding tones; it seemed like some malignant elf calling "Woe to you! Woe for ever! Darkness is coming, and I and Death await ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... this strange incident of the coffin is this: After the battle of the Nile a portion of the Orient's mainmast was drifting about, and was picked up by order of Captain Hallowell of the Swiftsure, who had it made into a coffin. It was handsomely finished, and sent to Admiral Nelson with the ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... boats awaited them. The schooner was anchored two cable lengths from the shore, her sails neatly rolled upon her yards, which were squared as neatly as those of a pleasure yacht or of a man-of-war. At the peak of the mainmast a narrow red pennant was gently swayed by the wind, which came in fitful puffs from ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... about three feet high, in which sit the two steersmen. In the after part of the vessel was a low poop, about three and a half feet high, which forms the captain's cabin, its furniture consisting of boxes, mats, and pillows. In front of the poop and mainmast was a little thatched house on deck, about four feet high to the ridge; and one compartment of this, forming a cabin six and a half feet long by five and a half wide, I had all to myself, and it was the snuggest and most comfortable little place I ever enjoyed ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... hoisted leg-o'-mutton sails on the foremast and mainmast under the lee of the land though the sails did not fill to Skipper Zeb's satisfaction, and he and Toby each shipped a big oar and pulled for a little until they were in the open bay and beyond the shelter of the ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... incidents of the sort, there was a note of comedy. It was supplied by a negro roustabout on one of the large transports. This darky throughout the trip had been very fearful of submarines, and when the actual moment of danger came he acted upon a predetermined course, and shinned up the mainmast as though Old Nick himself were at his heels. When the excitement was over an officer called ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... to have entered. There they anchored, and fearing that the wind with which they entered might shift to that which generally prevails in that season and with greater fury, they determined to run the said ship into the mud, and to cut away the mainmast, in order to render them less liable to drag, and to leave the port again and encounter the enemy. Accordingly, all possible haste was displayed in disembarking the men, and the silver and reals of your Majesty and of private persons, and the most valuable goods; but ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... commander-in-chief who ever drew a bowstring in European battle. But on the whole the fire of the Christians was greatly superior to that of the Turks. Twice the deck of Ali was swept clear of defenders, and twice the Spaniards rushed on board and advanced as far as the mainmast. At that point they were on each occasion driven back by the janizaries, who, though led by Ali in person, do not appear to have made good a footing on the deck of Don John. A third attempt was more successful. Not only did the Spaniards ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... whirlwind whistled past them. Fortunately the lugger was not hulled; but a grave amount of mischief was done aloft. The jigger-mast was cut in two and flew upward like a pipe-stem. A serious wound was given to the mainmast below the hounds, and the yard itself was shivered in the slings. No less than six shot plunged through both lugs, leaving holes in the canvas that made it resemble a beggar's shirt, and the jib-stay was cut in two half-way ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... smugglers had become alarmed. The longboat gun, which worked on a slide abaft all, was cleared, and the two little cohorns, or hand-swivel guns, which pointed over the sides, were trained and loaded. A man swarmed up the mainmast to look around. "The cutter's bearing up to close," he called out. "I see she's the ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... held me with his eye. He stood erect dilating, until he seemed to reach the height of a mainmast, as long and lank and brown as the subject of the veritable rime; and his ears, contracted, flapped like the pectorals of a flying-fish. It was uncertain whether he was going to fly or swim, or seize and shake me. I believed him ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... what Vandevelde ought to have done with the shadow of his ship spoken of in the first chapter of this section. In such a calm, we should in nature, if we had looked for the reflection, have seen it clear from the water-line to the flag on the mainmast; but in so doing, we should have appeared to ourselves to be looking under the water, and should have lost all feeling of surface. When we looked at the surface of the sea,—as we naturally should,—we should have seen the image of the hull absolutely ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... second day's voyage, a sudden and violent thunder-storm occurred, not unusual in those latitudes; during the raging of which our mainmast was struck ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... either side by two allegorical female figures, one of which was symbolic of the Armed Peace protecting herself with a sword, and the other was intended to represent French trade. Over the allegorical medallion was the mainmast used to display the French flag. Owing to the arrangement of the palace itself the flag was thus displayed in the continuation of the center of the main ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... her bows well out," he "almost perished" from cold. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 2732—Capt. Young, 8 Feb. 1739-40.] To-day it was broad farce. He held his sides with laughter to see the lieutenant of the tender he was in, mad with rage and drink, chase the steward round and round the mainmast with a loaded pistol, whilst the terrified hands, fearing for their lives, fled for refuge to the coalhole, the roundtops and the shore. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1498—Complaint of the Master and Company of H. M. Hired Tender Speedwell, 21 Dec. 1778.] To-morrow it was tragedy. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... recover, I was safe out of the corner where he had me trapped, with all the deck to dodge about. Just forward of the mainmast I stopped, drew a pistol from my pocket, took a cool aim, though he had already turned and was once more coming directly after me, and drew the trigger. The hammer fell, but there followed neither flash ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... sorr," promptly replied Tim Rooney, showing himself from behind the deck-house between the mainmast and foremast, which had previously hidden him from the view of the poop. ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... enemy had been on deck, peeping first one way then another. Here nothing presented but confusion, the rock hung over the hatchway at about twenty feet above my head, our foremast lay by the board, the mainmast yard-arm was down, and great part of the mainmast snapped off with it, and almost everything upon deck was displaced. This sight shocked me extremely; and calling for Adams, in whom I hoped to find some comfort, I was too soon convinced I ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... before the termination of the conflict. Her crew had jumped into the sea, supporting themselves by portions of the wreck, spars, and other accessible objects, the water swept over the stern and upper deck, and when thus partially submerged, the mainmast, pierced by a shot, broke off near the head, the bow lifted from the waves, and then came the end. Suddenly assuming a perpendicular position, caused by the falling aft of the battery and stores, straight as a plumb-line, stern first, ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... the boys saw as they followed their conductor over the ship they found her to be a three-masted, bark-rigged vessel with a cro' nest, like a small barrel, perched atop of her mainmast. Her already large coal bunkers had been added to until she was enabled to carry enough coal to give her a tremendous cruising radius. It was in order to economize on fuel she was rigged for the ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... risen over Manomet, sank behind Captain's Hill, the Little James had rounded the Gurnet, and was standing on for Cape Ann, with Myles Standish leaning against her mainmast, and smoking the pipe Hobomok had bestowed upon him with the assurance that he who used it carried a charmed life so long as it remained unbroken. The captain's arms were folded and his eyes fixed upon the fort-crowned hill where lay his home, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... resolved to cut away the mainmast, which they did, and this augmented the shock, neither could they get clear of it, though they cut it close by the board, because it was much entangled within the rigging; they could see no land except an island which was about the distance of three leagues, ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... us," added uncle Hapgood. "If he hadn't been as cool as cowcumber, and as stiff as the mainmast of a frigate, we should have been taken, every ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic |
