"Rigging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my white cloak and any other little rigging you want. Tommy likes to have his ladies a credit to him, you know," said Fanny, departing ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... had so over-watched themselves, that they were fall'n into a dead sleep, and we only wak'd at the crack. To be short, Ascyltos came in and briefly told us what he had done for our sakes: On this we got up; and as we were rigging our selves, it came into my head to kill the guard, and rifle the village; I told Ascyltos my mind. He liked the rifling well enough, but gave us a wish'd delivery without blood, for being acquainted with every corner of the house, he pick'd the lock of an inner-room ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... bass voice out of one window—"qu'est ce que c'est, conducteur," simultaneously demand a treble and a tenor from another window—"rien, Madame," the answer is always addressed to the lady, "rien du tout," he replies whilst endeavouring to repair some part of the "rigging" that could not stand the efforts of the poor beasts to move from their position. At length, however, you get fairly under weigh, with about a four knot breeze, and continue to make some progress for an hour or two amidst a noise caused by the rumbling of the vehicle, the creaking, jingling, rattling, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... general public back from the pier was a black mass of people; cheer upon cheer rose, to be wafted back from the transport, where the "diggers" lined every inch of the port side, clinging like monkeys to yards and rigging. Then the Nauru came to rest at last, and the gangways rattled down, and the march off began, to the quick lilt of the band playing "Oh, it's a Lovely War." The men took up the words, singing as they marched back ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... habit and good example, are daily seen running headlong into vice, and, with shipwrecked morals, sinking into ruin, can we at all wonder if a poor boy, cast forth into the world in the circumstances of Hodgkinson, and, like a half decked skiff, with lofty rigging and no ballast but its own intrinsic weight, drifted out upon the tempestuous ocean of life, without compass, or chart, or means of keeping reckoning, should have sometimes struck upon those treacherous ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... starts for Newfoundland from sixty to seventy men embark. Of this number twelve are sailors: the balance consists of villagers snatched from their work in the fields, who, engaged as day laborers for the preparation of fish, remain strangers to the rigging, and have nothing that is marine about them except their feet and stomach. Nevertheless, these men figure on the rolls of the naval inscription, and there perpetuate a deception. When there is occasion to defend the institution of premiums, these are cited in its favor; ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... instant a man rushed through the crowd and sprang upon the rail amidships, where, seizing some of the running rigging, he let himself down to the main deck. He looked aft at Mr. Trunnell, and then seeing that the mate had command of the ship, he looked into the forward cabin and came to where I stood bawling out orders to the men who were passing the tow-line outside the rigging. ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... so earnest, so determined, that, when Adrian said, "Well, though it is not exactly what you wish, yet consent, to please me"—I could no longer refuse. That evening we selected a vessel, whose size just seemed fitted for our enterprize; we bent the sails and put the rigging in order, and reposing that night in one of the city's thousand palaces, agreed to embark at ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... that this new way used by Deane, and this Sir W. Coventry observed several times, of preparing of fire-ships, do not do the work; for the fire, not being strong and quick enough to flame up, so as to take the rigging and sails, lies smothering a great while, half an hour before it flames, in which time they can get her off safely, though, which is uncertain, and did fail in one or two this bout, it do serve to burn our ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the wind rose and howled through the rigging. It tore at the sail of The Duff, and the great Pacific waves rolled swiftly by, rushing and hissing along the sides of the little ship and tossing her on their foaming crests. But she weathered the storm, ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... every whit as well as Jack Monkey, if not better; and we ought to do all we can to bring out his talent, so that he may make a monkey of himself, and, as he says, 'be somebody, and so happy.' So you furnish the moccasins and the tomahawk and I will get up the rest of the rigging. I will trim his new buckskin breeches and hunting shirt with bearskin, and take those plumes from over the looking-glass up there, and make him as fine a feathered hat as ever grandmother Pocahontas fixed up for brothers. ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... weapons; far away in the blue shadows of the departing day, like a spirit of the sea, the white steamer, from whose sides poured unceasingly the yellow flashes from the mouths of the cannon. Several shots had caused a good deal of damage among the rigging of the gunboats. The Callao had only half a funnel left, from which gray-brown smoke and red ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... nights, trimming and rigging our frigates, boarding and stowing our provision, tearing abroad and burning our pinnaces, that the ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... general effect of the scene before him is the most interesting object for his gaze. The carriages continue to whirl past, but one sees hardly more of them than their lamps. The river glides, cold and shining, a long silvery light under the opposite bank, while trees and masts and rigging relieve themselves against the golden bars of the distant sky. But the band ceases to play, and every one goes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... the moon stood bright and full in the heavens; the gondola drifted away to the northward; the islands of the lagoons seemed to rise and sink with the light palpitations of the waves like pictures on the undulating fields of banners; the stark rigging of a ship showed black against the sky, the Lido sank from sight upon the east, as if the shore had composed itself to sleep by the side of its beloved sea to the music of the surge that gently beat its sands; the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... was a long low island known as Philip's Point, dwindling down at its northeastern side to two long narrow bars of quicksand. Alan's horrified eyes saw a small schooner sunk between the bars; her hull was entirely under water and in the rigging clung one solitary figure. So much he saw before the Point was blotted out in a ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... dipped faster into the water, which rippled up beneath her bow. "Schooner, ahoy!—answer, or I'll fire!" Still no reply; but, almost immediately, a bright sudden flash burst from her bow, and a shot came whizzing through the mizen-rigging. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... threatening and every indication pointed to another cyclone, so they decided to run the sloop into one of the sheltered bays that abound on those coasts. Here they lay for two days while the wind whistled and shrieked through the naked rigging. As they were about to get under way the third morning after the dropped anchor, a native came off in a canoe containing pineapples and cocoanuts which he exchanged for a few biscuits. The captain questioned him closely in regard to wrecks around the ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... .. < chapter xx 15 ALL ASTIR > A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the pequod. not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything betokened that the ship's preparations were hurrying to a close. Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp look-out upon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasing and providing at the stores; and the men ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... no sound of "dragon-fly, or painted moth, or musical winged bee" to break the stillness; all the insect-world seems dead, or flown south with the swallows—though, as there are still spiders' webs to be seen, each delicate thread marked in sharp outline, like the rigging of an icebound ship, it would seem that there must still remain some unwary fly to be ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... book he had been reading—it was a volume of Tennyson—and he sat with it on his knees staring at the white sunlit main-deck barred with the white shadows of the standing rigging. ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... call us but three, after all. I know we can do much; but a gale may come that would teach us our insignificance. As it is, we are barely able to furl the main-top-gallant-sail in a squall, leaving one hand at the wheel, and another to let go rigging. No, no, Moses; we must admit we are rather short-handed, putting the best face on ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... quite to the extremity of the wing and was about to tie his first rope, when a fierce gust of wind threatened to tear him from the rigging and crash him to the ice, a dangerous distance below. With a quick clutch, he saved himself but lost the rope. It was with a grunt of disgust that he saw it wind and twirl toward the white surface below. Then it was, for the first time, that he saw the ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... way [I have requested] that he shall not furnish rigging and other supplies unless they are requested; for I am sending the vessels from here already provided, for both going and coming, with everything necessary (even the candles), in the endeavor to avoid the expense caused to your Majesty in the past with such outlays as have been made, and with the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... resembling the Carranchas) wait at the mouth of a rabbit-hole, and together seize on the animal when it comes out. They were constantly flying on board the vessel when in the harbour; and it was necessary to keep a good look out to prevent the leather being torn from the rigging, and the meat or game from the stern. These birds are very mischievous and inquisitive; they will pick up almost anything from the ground; a large black glazed hat was carried nearly a mile, as was a pair of the heavy balls used in catching cattle. Mr. Usborne experienced ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... One of these men was Francis Drake. He was son of a chaplain in the navy and as a boy played in the rigging of the great ships-of-war, as other boys play in the streets. In time young Drake was apprenticed to the skipper of a small trading vessel. Fortune smiled on the lad early in life. His master died, and out of love for the apprentice who had served him so well, left him the vessel. Francis ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... 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 ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... troopers they fondly took farewell of, women smiled and laughed, though there were often tears in their eyes, and the men were laboriously humorous. A band played airs which the bandmaster considered suitable to the occasion, the troops, swarming on the railings and the rigging, sang lustily snatches of song; and finally, amidst the fortissimo strains of the National Anthem, a wild holloing from every one, and a bellowing of fog-horns, the ships drew slowly away from the wharf. They manoeuvred ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... chilly. The Malay quartermaster, coming up to get something from the lockers on the bridge, shivered visibly. The forests above and below and on the opposite bank looked black and dank; wet dripped from the rigging upon the tightly stretched deck awnings, and it was in the middle of a shuddering yawn that I caught sight of Almayer. He was moving across a patch of burned grass, a blurred, shadowy shape with the blurred bulk of a house behind him, a low house of mats, bamboos, ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... life In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife; And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold, And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent; And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side; But Sir Richard cried in his English pride: "We have fought such a fight for a day and a night As may never be fought again! We have won great glory, my men! And a day less or more At sea or ashore, We die—does it matter when? Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... vaults, by-the-by; and there are broad quays with huge basins, or I might describe them as vast tanks, which are full of fine ships, each of many hundred tons. The names of the ships were painted in large letters on black boards and hung up on the rigging, so that we had no necessity to make inquiries for the ship Mr Ward ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... around for the Cabin-boy. He was nowhere to be seen, but his laugh was heard overhead, and his face was then seen looking down from the rigging ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... oak. Leather was used for sails to withstand the violent ocean storms. The long Roman galleys were no match for these, and things would have gone badly had not Caesar devised a plan for cutting the enemy's rigging with hooks "sharpened at the end and fixed to long poles." With these, the Romans cut the rigging of the enemy's ships forming the fleet of Brittany; the sails fell and the ships were rendered useless. One after another ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... the question. We therefore made the best of our way ashore in the dense fog, taking with us all our guns and the best part of our ammunition, as well as provisions and a quantity of sails and spars for rigging up tents. On no side of us could we see further than twenty paces. Of the inhabitants of this dreary spot—if indeed it had inhabitants—we knew nothing. So we first of all cleaned and loaded our firearms, ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... woods are overrun by a gay democracy of creepers and climbers, which interlace the entire forest, and, descending to take root again, appear like the shrouds and stays of a line-of-battle ship. Monkeys gambol on this wild rigging, and mingle their chatter with the screams of the parrot. Trees as lofty as our oaks are covered with flowers as beautiful as our lilies. Here are orchids of softest tints;[128] flowering ferns, fifty feet high; the graceful ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... Bertram, promptly; "and we have done everything to get ready for you, too, even to rigging up Spunkie to masquerade as Spunk. I'll warrant that Pete's nose is already flattened against the window-pane, lest we should HAPPEN to come to-night; and there's no telling how many cakes of chocolate Dong Ling has spoiled by ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... ships, which had suffered most, hauled off and abandoned the fight. That of the admiral had fared little better, and now her condition grew desperate. With her rigging torn, her mainmast half cut through, her mizzen-mast splintered, her cabin pierced, and her hull riddled with shot, another volley seemed likely to sink her, when Phips ordered her to be cut loose from her moorings, and she drifted out of fire, leaving cable and anchor behind. The remaining ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... was insignificant, and that they were wretched sailors and poor shots. Sterret took a Tripolitan cruiser of fourteen guns after an engagement of thirty minutes; he killed or wounded fifty of her crew, and did not lose a man, nor suffer any material damage in his hull or rigging. There was no one killed on the American side when Decatur burned the Philadelphia. The Constitution was under the fire of the Tripolitan batteries for two hours without losing a man, and was equally fortunate when she ran in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... sixpence per pound. And now our stores were exhausted, and we had to dine as best we could, on our last half-ounce of tea, sweetened by our last quarter of a pound of sugar. I had marked, however, a dried thornback hanging among the rigging. It had been there nearly three weeks before, when I came first aboard, and no one seemed to know for how many weeks previous; for as it had come to be a sort of fixture in the vessel, it could be looked at without being seen. ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... a dainty little cabin. Her planks were almost white—there was not a board in her off which one might not, as the Partan expanded the common phrase, "ait his parritch, an' never fin' a mote in 's mou'." Her cordage was all so clean, her standing rigging so taut, everything so shipshape, that Malcolm was in raptures. If the burn had only been navigable so that he might have towed the graceful creature home and laid her up under the very walls of the House! It would have perfected the place in his eyes. He made her ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the homeward-bound crew was the same as the outward-bound, and Mr. Dodge had come abroad quite as green as he was now going home ripe, this traveller of six months' finish did not escape diver commentaries that literally cut him up "from clew to ear-ring," and which flew about in the rigging much as active birds flutter from branch to branch in a tree. The subject of all this wit, however, remained profoundly, not to say happily, ignorant of the sensation he had produced, being occupied in disposing of the Dresden pipe, the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... had seen something more than ours; for at noon it blew a gale, and by sunset it was deemed prudent to bring the ship's head to the wind, and we are now lying to. The ship lurches, and the wind howls through the bare rigging; but she rides buoyantly, and ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... light always drew the sea-birds, especially on dull nights, and 'twas long since we had grown used to the sound of their beating and flapping, and took no notice of it. A moment after I spoke one came dashing against the rigging, and we heard him tumble into the sea; and then one broke his neck against the cage overhead and tumbled dead at our feet. Bathsheba shivered as I tossed ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... into the rigging and removed Tricksy very gently from her perch, tucked her under one arm with her head hanging in front and her heels behind, slid down the ropes and deposited the little ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... she yielded reluctantly to the violent onset; then coming up with a stately and irresistible motion, brought her spars to windward in the teeth of the screeching squall. Out of the abysmal darkness of the black cloud overhead white hail streamed on her, rattled on the rigging, leaped in handfuls off the yards, rebounded on the deck—round and gleaming in the murky turmoil like a shower of pearls. It passed away. For a moment a livid sun shot horizontally the last rays of sinister light between the hills of steep, rolling waves. Then a wild night rushed in—stamped ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... continue asking, and very soon went up again on deck. The first officer, a godless man, was in charge. I went over and asked him to let down the clews or corners of the mainsail, which had been drawn up in order to lessen the useless flapping of the sail against the rigging. He answered, "What would be the good of that?" I told him we had been asking a wind from GOD, that it was coming immediately, and we were so near the reef by this time that there was not a minute to lose. With a look of incredulity and contempt, he said with an oath ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... smoke drifted upward from the deck of the launch ahead and floated lazily above the rigging. Some fifty feet beyond the port bow of the Petrel the water leaped upward in a tiny spout. Dickie's rifle sounded in Gregory's ear and the report of his own prolonged the echoes. As he pumped in another cartridge he noted that the girl's eyes were shining and her red lips were parted in ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... of the country in Italy, and concentrate them in and around Tarentum. He began to make naval preparations, too, on a very extensive scale. The port of Tarentum soon presented a very busy scene. The work of building and repairing ships—of fabricating sails and rigging—of constructing and arming galleys—of disciplining and training crews—of laying in stores of food and of implements of war, went on with great activity, and engaged universal attention. The Tarentines ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... I ever said you were." But if you'd seen her, the big spars of her, the set of her rigging, the fine-fitting sails, the beautiful line of the rail, and the straight flat deck, you'd have to admit it wasn't any surprise. You couldn't 've done it with every vessel—but the Aurora! A great bit of wood, ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... spruce hills, back of the village, and it had receded upon itself. The little French settlement (for the inhabitants were all descended from the ancient Acadians) was no longer discernible, and heavy drops of water fell from the rigging on the deck. The men put on their "sow-wester" hats and yellow oiled cotton jackets. Their hair looked grey, as if there had been sleet falling. There was a great change in the temperature—the weather appeared ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... shot was all expended, double-headed, partridge and grape: then we loaded with iron crows, marlin-spikes, and old nails; but finding the Frenchman took a good deal of drubbing, and that he had shot away all our rigging, and killed and wounded a great number of our men, d'ye see, I resolved to run him on board upon his quarter, and so ordered our grapplings to be got ready; but monsieur, perceiving what we were about, filled his topsails and sheered off, leaving ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... were hewing timber and putting up the ribs of the vessel; others were bolting planks to the ribs. The size of the ship amazed him; it was larger than his father's barn. In a few weeks the hull would be finished, the masts put in, the rigging rove, and then the ship would ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... of an hour; and yet no response. The moon is shining clearly now. They can see her hatchways, the stumps of her masts, great tangles of rigging swaying and lashing down across her deck; but that delicate upper curve is becoming more ragged after every wave; and the tide ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... steamer took its way seaward; through the Narrows, past the lighthouse; and the wind sang through the rigging, and the purple hills of Jersey faded from ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... took a greenish tinge; numerous vessels were seen heading the same way as themselves; and various birds, of a kind never met far from shore, came fluttering around them. Frank, too much excited to go below, perched himself in the rigging, and strained his eyes to catch the earliest glimpse of Europe. But Africa came first, in the shape of the Tangier Light; nor was it till 4 A.M. that the haze lifted, and a huge dark mass was seen looming on the port bow, the sight of which made the boy's heart leap, ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... vapour as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet, Looked toward the lower bay to notice the arriving ships, Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me, Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor, The sailors at work in the rigging, or out astride the spars. The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants, The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses, The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... within thirty yards of the vessel; so that the people employed in these occupations could be protected against the natives by the proximity of the cutter, without preventing the necessary repairs to the rigging being carried on at the same time by the remainder of the crew ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... and the men huddled against it while their comrades on the surrounding hills fought for them, their volleys passing close above our heads, and meeting the rush of the Turkish bullets on the way, so that there was now one continuous whistling shriek, like the roar of the wind through the rigging of a ship in a storm. If a man had raised his arm above his head his hand would have been torn off. It had come up so suddenly that it was like two dogs, each springing at the throat of the other, and in a greater degree ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... evening, and when, next morning, we rounded Cape Quiros, we found a heavy sea, so that the big ship pitched and ploughed with dull hissing through the foaming waves. She lay aslant under the pressure of the wind that whistled in the rigging, and the full curve of the great sails was a fine sight; but it was evident that the sails and ropes were in a very rotten condition, and soon, with anxious looks, we followed the growth of a tear in the mainsail, wondering whether ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... the quiet deck became a scene of quick activity, as the men left their tasks and sprang to their appointed stations. The long coils of rope were thrown upon the deck and seized by the groups of seamen detailed for the purpose; while the rigging shook under the quick steps of the alert topmen springing up the ratlines, swarming over the tops, and laying out on the yards, without a thought of the giddy elevation, in their intense ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the acts of the society, the minutes of every meeting, and accurate detailed descriptions of all work accomplished. Therefore, while the rest of the society was busy cutting up old sheets, levied from the surrounding neighborhood, and sewing and rigging the sails under Bill's direction, I, with pad and pencil in hand, took ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... eyes. We fed him, though it was difficult to get anything down his reed-shaped bill; but he took kindly to our force-work, and when we let him loose on the deck, walked about with an air quite tame and familiar. He died, however, two days afterwards. A French pigeon, which was caught in the rigging, lived and throve during ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... was enchanting as the harp of David! Passing along by the left bank, we presently entered the First Brass River, which is the Nun of Europeans, where at midnight we could faintly distinguish the masts and rigging of the English brig in the dusky light, which appeared like a dark and fagged cloud above the horizon. To me, however, no sight could be more charming. It was beautiful as the gates of Paradise, and my heart fluttered with unspeakable delight, as we landed in silence ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... rather large for a boy of Paul's age to handle, but as this fault would be corrected in a year or two, Captain Littleton thought it would be well to prepare for the future as well as the present. But the rigging was so arranged that the new boat was hardly more difficult to manage than the old one, and she was capable of saving at least one half the time which the Blowout occupied in going to and returning from ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... steps into that state of easy slumber, in which "come no dreams," and the last sounds of the lecturer's "hypogenous and perigenous" died away, becoming beautifully less, till your senses sank into rest, the syllables "rigging us, rigging us," seemed to melt away in the distance and fade from your memory—Peace be with you, Doctor A. If I owe gratitude any where I have my debt with you. The very memory I bear of you has saved me no inconsiderable sum in hop and henbane. Without ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... Obadiah upon the Kaiser William. They are distinctly hostile views. Mr. Landseer Mackenzie discourses not only upon these anticipatory condemnations but also upon the relations of the weather to this war. He is convinced quite simply and honestly that God has been persistently rigging the weather against the Germans. He points out that the absence of mist on the North Sea was of great help to the British in the autumn of 1914, and declares that it was the wet state of the country that really held up ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... them to Pop under the kerosene lamp at night, explaining to him their advantages in handling small material like coal or broken stone. Once she so far relaxed her rules in regard to Jennie's lover as to send for Carl to come to the house after supper, questioning him closely about the upper rigging of a new derrick she had seen. Carl's experience as a sailor was especially valuable in matters of this kind. He could not only splice a broken "fall," and repair the sheaves and friction-rollers in a hoisting-block, but whenever ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Bubastis, Busiris, and even Mendes and Tanis. The boats were high-riding, graceful and finished at head and stern with sheaves of carved lotus. Hull and superstructure were painted in gorgeous colors with a preponderance of ivory and gold. Masts, rigging and oars were wrapped with lotus, roses and mimosa. Sails and canopies were brilliant with dyes and undulant with fringes. Troops of tiny boys, innocent of raiment, were posted about the sides of the vessels holding festoons. Oarsmen wore chaplets on the ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... of the island, the sides of the boat were covered with blossoms, the mast had put out a wealth of petals, and the sail and rigging were covered with flowering vines. Then, as he passed between the high rocks and entered the harbour, the watchers on shore saw a boat approaching, splendid with summer flowers, and on its mast were spreading branches dropping down with luscious fruit. Nearer and nearer ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... cried, as he saw the girls. "So these are your consorts; eh, Bet? They do you proud! May I be keel-hauled if I've seen a prettier set of sails on a craft in a long while. It's good rigging— good rigging," and he glanced particularly at ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... this singular memorandum, which is worth preserving as a relic of an ancient custom. After reforming the spelling and grammar, it runs as follows: "Men that travelled with teams on the Sabbath, Dec. 18th, 1803, were Jeremiah Richardson and Jonas Parker, both of Shirley. They had teams with rigging such as is used to carry barrels, and they were travelling westward. Richardson was questioned by the Hon. Ephraim Wood, Esq., and he said that Jonas Parker was his fellow-traveller, and he further said that a Mr. Longley was his employer, who promised to bear ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... 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, manned, drop swiftly below the rail, and rushed after her. He heard a splash. 'Let go; clear the falls!' He leaned over. The river alongside seethed in frothy streaks. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... nine o'clock when I reached South Street. It was no new region to me, nor was I ignorant of the specified drinking den on the dock to which I had been directed. I remembered it as a bright spot in a mass of ship-prows and bow-rigging, and was possessed, besides, of a vague consciousness that there was something odd in connection with it which had aroused my curiosity sufficiently in the past for me to have once formed the resolution of seeing it again under circumstances ...
— The Staircase At The Hearts Delight - 1894 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... quarter-deck; while the master-gunner and his mates, loading with a rapidity the mixed races opposed could not rival, hulled the schooner well between wind and water, and then fired chain-shot at her masts, as ordered, and began to play the mischief with her shrouds and rigging. Meantime, Fullalove and Kenealy, aided by Vespasian, who loaded, were quietly butchering the pirate crew two a minute, and hoped to settle the question they were fighting for: smooth bore v. rifle; but unluckily neither fired once ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... modern warfare, but have no hesitation in believing that naphtha prepared as already stated would in many cases prove advantageous. It seems to be well calculated for close naval combat, if the object be to destroy the sails and rigging of an enemy's ship. The rapidity and extent of its combustion, added to the circumstances of its peculiar properties, that of resisting the action of water in particular, ...
— James Cutbush - An American Chemist, 1788-1823 • Edgar F. Smith
... arrive at this point, look you, as easily after ten months as ten years of wedlock; it depends upon the speed of the vessel, its style of rigging, upon the trade winds, the force of the currents, and especially upon the composition of the crew. You have this advantage over the mariner, that he has but one method of calculating his position, while husbands have at least a thousand ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... was to secure their prizes, and to endeavour to get clear of the shore before nightfall. The Dutchmen had fought gallantly, aiming at the hulls of the British ships, which were fearfully shattered, and in all of them numerous shots were found sticking; though the masts and rigging were but comparatively little injured. The English lost 228 killed and 812 wounded, including many officers, and the Dutch 540 killed and 620 wounded. Of the whole Dutch fleet seven only escaped, and five of these were afterwards captured. With regard to the number of their guns, the two ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... the French were fighting the battles of my country." In a little time the Hoche was surrounded by four sail of the line and one frigate, who poured their shot into her upon all sides. During six hours she maintained the unequal combat, fighting "till her masts and rigging were cut away, her scuppers flowed with blood, her wounded filled the cockpit, her shattered ribs yawned at each new stroke, and let in five feet of water in the hold, her rudder was carried off, and she floated a dismantled wreck ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... placid except for the dip of the oar Of the skiff, or the barge striking out from the shore, While merry excursionists shout till the gale Reverberates laughter through rigging ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... him. You will be sensible of the oddest contrast between the smooth little creature, and the rough man who seems to be carved out of hard-grained wood - between the delicate hand expectantly held out, and the immense thumb and finger that can hardly feel the rigging of thread they mend - between the small voice and the gruff growl - and yet there is a natural propriety in the companionship: always to be noted in confidence between a child and a person who has any merit of reality and genuineness: which is ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... the first glare of light burst from her cabin-hatch. Few, few on board can forget the spectacle. A ship set fire to at sea! It would seem that man was almost warring with his Maker. Her helpless condition, the red flames licking the rigging as they climbed aloft, the sparks and pieces of burning rope taken off by the wind and flying miles to leeward, the ghastly glare thrown upon the dark sea as far as the eye could reach, and then the death-like stillness of the scene—all ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... ship building and rigging followed the flag fit; for Thorny, feeling too old now for such toys, made over his whole fleet to "the children," condescending, however, to superintend a thorough repairing of the same before he disposed of all but the big man-of-war, which continued to ornament ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... 8th. Pressure from seven till eight this morning. As I was sitting drawing in the afternoon I was startled by a sudden report or crash. It seemed to be straight overhead, as if great masses of ice had fallen from the rigging on to the deck above my cabin. Every one starts up and throws on some extra garment; those that are taking an afternoon nap jump out of their berths right into the middle of the saloon, calling out to know what has happened. Pettersen ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... King William ordered a wet dock—with yards, dry docks, launches, and conveniences of all kinds for building and repairing of ships—to be built; and with these followed necessarily the building of store-houses and warehouses for the rigging, sails, naval and military stores, &c., of such ships as may be appointed to be laid up there, as now several are; with very handsome houses for the commissioners, clerks, and officers of all kinds usual in the king's yards, to dwell in. It is, ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... a galley ready with a good deal of trouble, for there was not even bonote [5] to calk it, and I had to go in person among the houses of the Indians to find some. I launched it, and fitted it with guns and new rigging to make it ready; for I was resolved that if the enemy fled I should follow them even as far as their own country. When the men got back I embarked, on Thursday morning, which I reckon to be the third of November. By noon I had come in sight of the enemy, where I anchored, and we exchanged cannon-shots. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... consisted almost entirely (only) of passenger coaches. They put before me a cover (table requisites), which consisted of a plate, spoon, knife, fork, a small glass for brandy, a glass for wine, and a serviette. On the sea was a great ship, and among the rigging everywhere sat sailors. His escort stood at the back of the box. Dark ranges of ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... the past few months, and now presented herself to the eye of the spectator not much changed from her former self. A fine fresh coat of coal tar had but recently ornamented her fair exterior, while a coat of whitewash inside the hold had done much to drive away the odor of the fragrant potato. Rigging and sails had been repaired as well as circumstances would permit, and in the opinion of her gallant captain ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... moved laboriously along, while every eye was strained to catch the first glimpse of the hostile navy. At length the watch from the foretop of the Real called out, "A sail!" and soon after announced that the whole Ottoman fleet was in sight. Several others, climbing up the rigging, confirmed his report; and in a few moments more word was sent to the same effect by Andrew Doria, who commanded on the right. There was no longer any doubt; and Don John, ordering his pendant to be displayed at the mizzen-peak, unfurled the great standard ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... while Trask and Marjorie went to the poop-deck. The Nuestra looked clean as a pin and fresh as a maker's model. Her decks had been scrubbed until the caulking in the seams looked like lines of black paint on old ivory. Her standing rigging had been newly tarred, her bright work polished, and the water casks lashed in the waist had their hoops painted a bright yellow, not yet dry. New hemp hung in the belaying pins. The roof of the ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... coast, which is in full view, and expecting to be in the Cove of Cork in the morning of to-morrow.... We left Liverpool yesterday morning, as I wrote you we should, and as we passed the ships of war in the harbor We were cheered from the rigging by the tars of the various vessels, and the flags of others were dipped as a salute, all of which were returned by us in kind. The landing stage and quays of Liverpool were densely crowded with people who waved their handkerchiefs as we slowly ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"; eternal vigilance is the price of a well-ordered home, and every woman before me knows it. (Applause). I know that the conservative, in his fear, says, Surely you would not have woman till the soil, sail the seas, run up the rigging of a ship like a monkey (I use the language of one of your most distinguished men), go to war, engage in political brawls? No! I would not have her do anything. She must be her own judge. In relation to tilling ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... confidently in taking their part in the bombardment; and silently their ships, one by one, left the port. The Italian and American vessels remained for a time; and as the British ships followed, in stately order, their crews manned the rigging and vociferously cheered our ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... the river," says Dr. Thacher, "I had a fine view of this splendid conflagration. The ships were enwrapped in a torrent of fire, which, spreading with vivid brightness among the combustible rigging and running with amazing rapidity to the tops of the several masts, while all around was thunder and lightning from our numerous cannon and mortars, and in the darkness of night presented one of the most sublime and magnificent ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... some indistinct answer. Rinaldo pushed down the helm, and a minute later the Pluto ran alongside the other vessel. Half a dozen hands, told off for the work, sprang into her rigging, and lashed the vessels together; while Francis, followed by the crew, climbed the bulwarks and sprang on to the ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... the drenched and naked pier. My husband's valet, in waterproofs, came to the sheltered side of the car, and, shouting above the noises of the wind in the rigging of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... Cushing when he steered his little launch through the black night against the great ram Albemarle, not Custer dashing into the valley of the Rosebud to die with all his men, not Farragut himself lashed in the rigging of the Hartford as she forged past the forts to encounter her iron-clad foe, can stand as a more perfect type ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... rigging a man up in an ante-bellum suit of tinware and standing him on the landing of the slosh. He bought the goods at a Fourth Avenue antique store, and hung a sign-out: ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... toil shall you have over your preparations, for I will see after all that," and thereupon they part talking. King Harald had a ship launched in the spring; it was a merchant ship, both great and good. This ship the king ordered to be laden with wood, and fitted out with full rigging. When the ship was ready the king had Olaf called to him, and said, "This ship shall be your own, Olaf, for I should not like you to start from Norway this summer as a passenger in any one else's ship." Olaf thanked the king in fair words for his generosity. After that Olaf got ready for his ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... of all nations. These corsairs neither gave nor took quarter, and were in the habit, after they had plundered their prizes, of setting them adrift, with the sailors nailed to the deck or chained to the rigging; while the officers were held for ransom. In case the vessels themselves were wanted, the crews were indiscriminately tossed overboard; while, on the ether hand, the buccaneers rarely hesitated to blow up their own ships, when unable to escape from superior force. Capture was followed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... I considered it as my own,) I seized the image from the mast, and threw it overboard, telling them to go to their pumps if they wished to be saved. The whole crew uttered a cry of horror, and would have thrown me after the image, but I made my escape up the rigging, from whence I dared not descend for ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... thing we can do on stormy nights," she added. "We can pray. And I sometimes think, nights when the winds are roaring, how many souls all along the coast must be kneeling while the sailors at sea are up in the rigging, climbing, ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... stay at the Circle L the night before, Lawler had changed from his cowboy rigging to a black suit of civilian cut, with tight trousers that were stuffed into the tops of soft boots of dull leather. The coat was long, after the fashion of the period, cut square at the bottom, and the silk lapels ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... were not required, however, to do much hard work at rowing, for there were two shallops provided, manned by strong men, to tow the skiff. In this way the skiff rowed to and fro over the sea, and then passed along the fleet, saluted every where by the shouts of the crews upon the yards and in the rigging, and by the guns of the ships. Three thousand guns were discharged by the ships in these salvos in honor of their humble progenitor. The Little Grandfather returned the salutes of the guns with great spirit by means of three small swivels which had ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... led the way to a sheltered seat among the trees. In the later evening-time the Square was almost empty. Two middle-aged ladies, walking up and down (who considerately remembered their own youth, and kept out of the way), and a boy rigging a model yacht (who was too closely occupied to notice them), were the only persons in ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... busily hewed and hammered Mallet huge and heavy axe; Workmen laughed and sang and clamored; Whirred the wheels, that into rigging Spun the ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... rivers, span sea-ways, with bridges of stone, bridges of steel. Far as the eye can reach, a bewilderment of masts, a web-work of rigging, conceals the shores, which are cliffs of masonry. Trees in a forest stand less thickly, branches in a forest mingle less closely, than the masts and spars of that immeasurable maze. Yet all ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... I dragged myself out on deck it was no wonder to find the weather very blusterous and with, ever and anon, clouds of white spray lashing aboard out of the hissing dark with much wind that piped shrill and high in cordage and rigging. ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... tell on my constitution. Notwithstanding repeated doses of cognac, taken from time to time as I walked the decks, the sea began to whirl all round, the clouds overhead to swing about at random through the rigging, and the odor of the machinery to produce the strongest and most disagreeable sensations. I went below to see how things looked there; but, finding the atmosphere dense and the prospect gloomy, returned in great haste and looked over the bulwarks to ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... cultivated, with houses and villages at intervals upon the banks of the river or inland, alternating with cemeteries and pyramids of bags of salt, producing a charming and ever varying landscape. When night approached, lanterns of every hue, fastened to the masts and rigging of the yachts, produced the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... gliding motion from the quick plunge and shock of the bluff-bowed fishing boat to which he was accustomed. The sails had been scrubbed until there was not a speck upon them. The masts were lofty and tapering, the rigging neat and trim, and every stay as taut ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... contrary, the working of the foremast sails demands much greater proficiency in seamanship. In fact, when it is necessary to set them, the sailors must climb by the rigging—it may be in the foretop, it may be on the spars of the top-gallant mast, it may be to the top of the said mast—and that, as well in letting them fly as in drawing them in to diminish their surface ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... some real measure to contemplate the whole, of which, mechanically considered, it is a minor product and a rare ingredient. Here, again, the change was altogether positive. It was not the escape of a vessel in a storm with loss of spars and rigging, not a shortening of sail to save the masts and make a port of refuge. It was rather the emergence from narrow channels to an open sea. We had propelled the great ship, finding purchase here and there for slow and uncertain movement. ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... held on, however, and we saw no signs of its abating. The rigging was found to be ill-fitted, and greatly strained; and on the third day of the blow, about five in the afternoon, our mizzen-mast, in a heavy lurch to windward, went by the board. For an hour or more, we tried in vain to get rid of it, on account of the prodigious rolling ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... storm, riding out through all that the winds and waves can do to her, one does not condemn her because a yard-arm gives way, nor even though the mainmast should go by the board. If she can make her port, saving life and cargo, she is a good ship, let her losses in spars and rigging be what they may. In this affair of the habeas corpus we will wait awhile before we come to any final judgment. If it be that the people, when the war is over, shall consent to live under a military or other dictatorship, that they ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... a flash was seen to proceed from one of the galeases of the Christian fleet. The shot was aimed at the flag-ship of the Pacha, conspicuous in the centre of the line, and carrying the sacred green standard of the Prophet. Passing through the rigging of the vessel, the ball carried off a portion of the highest of the three splendid lanterns which hung on the lofty stern as symbols of command. The Pacha, from his quarter-deck, looked up on hearing the crash, and perceiving the ominous mischief, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... and ample, and the officers' quarters all that could be desired; her galley equipment was complete, even to a small auxiliary ice plant. What she needed was cleaning, painting and scraping, and lots of it, also the riggers would be a few days on her standing rigging; but, so far as Matt could discern, that was all. From the watchman he learned that one Terence Reardon had been her chief engineer in the days when the Oriental Steamship Company ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... too frightened, however, to notice and admire the perfect sang-froid with which Captain Brisac and Mr Sennitt contemplated the approach of our antagonist. They stood side by side, just abaft the main-rigging, scrutinising every movement on board the French ship, and exchanging critical remarks upon the smartness of her crew in shortening sail and executing the various manoeuvres usual on board a ship going into action; and I gathered, with ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... Her rigging was rough with the clotted drift that drives in a Northern breeze, Her sides were clogged with the lazy weed that spawns in the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... had then suffered much, having lost the yard-arms of both his lower yards, and had no sails drawing but his foresail, main-top-gallant-sail, and mizen-topsail, the others flying about. We had engaged her to leeward, which, from the heel his ship had, prevented him from making our rigging and sails the objects of his fire; though I am well convinced he had laid his guns down as much as possible. When I assumed the command, we had shot upon his bow. I endeavoured to get the courses hauled up, and the top-gallant-sails clewed up, neither of which ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... on board, and ask the first lieutenant for fresh leave. I hope to be with you in about an hour." Having seen them both to the inn, we made our bows and repaired on board. On explaining to the lieutenant his reason for wishing to go again on shore he obtained further leave, put on a fresh set of rigging, jumped into the boat that had brought us off, and was soon in the fond arms of his mother and sister. Shall I say I envied him? No, I did not; I only wished my mother and sister—for I had, like him, only one—were at the "Fountain" ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... hills which most of the crew had ever seen seemed petty mounds. Frank, of course, knew the Alps; and Amyas the Andes; but Cary's notions of height were bounded by M'Gillicuddy's Reeks, and Brimblecombe's by Exmoor; and the latter, to Cary's infinite amusement, spent a whole day holding on by the rigging, and staring upwards with his chin higher than his nose, till he got a stiff neck. Soon the sea became rough and chopping, though the breeze was fair and gentle; and ere they were abreast of the Cape, they became aware of that ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the old tunes that these sailors heard in boyhood times would sound well to-day floating among the rigging. Try "Jesus, lover of my soul," or "Come, ye sinners, poor and needy," or "There is a fountain filled with blood." As soon as they try those old hymns, the memory of loved ones would come back again, and the familiar group of their childhood would gather, and father would be there, ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... you weren't? We're only making ready. But be careful and not let it get tangled in the rigging," was ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... of all. It was as though it came from afar off, down behind the horizon line that showed black, with a fringe of angry yellow in the west. A low, mumbling, roaring, moaning wind it was, that whistled mournfully through the rigging of the schooner, and ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... fight lasted from seven o'clock in the evening until eleven o'clock, most of the time in darkness. The Bon Homme Richard got so close to the Serapis in the beginning of the battle that their spars and rigging became entangled together, and Jones attempted to board the British vessel. A stubborn hand-to-hand struggle ensued, Jones and his men being repulsed. Then the Bon Homme Richard dropped loose from her antagonist, and with their guns almost muzzle to muzzle, the two ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... aeroplane and declared it a "dud"; so we cheered Sammie up as well as we could by drinking his health and inquiring into his taste in flowers. Undismayed, Sammie took the machine off the ground, with the wheel held into his stomach; the rigging of the machine was such that it would fly on an even plane longitudinally if the wheel was kept back as far as possible. By all the laws of aeronautics this aeroplane should have crashed before leaving the ground, but ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... it was a desperate thing to do, but it was our only chance; and after swinging round the fore-yard, and rigging up some tackle, the men saw what was meant, and gave a bit of a cheer. Then they clustered together, passengers and men, while I shouted to Mr Vallance, offering him his choice—to go below with another, to make fast the rope to the pillars, or ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... her, and now took note that this sail of hers was ragged and frozen, so that it flapped like a jointed board, and that her rigging hung in all ways and untended, but stiff with rime; and drawing yet nearer, they saw an ice-line about her hull, so deep that her timbers seemed bitten through, and a great pile of frozen snow upon her poop, banked even above her tiller; but no helmsman, and ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not deny. To him, reared as he had been, the barrier of mixed blood rose between them, a thing surmountable only at the cost of caste; the shadow of that horror lay upon his soul like ink—as black as the silhouetted rails and masts and rigging of the Poonah on her dead white decks. He could win her heart only to lose his world. And still he loved, still pursued his steadfast way toward her, knowing that, were he to find her and his passion to be returned, death alone could avert their union in marriage. He might ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... Sirens who tell of such wonderful things that the merchants have to stop their ears with wax lest they should hear them, and leap into the water and be drowned; of the sunken galleys with their tall masts, and the frozen sailors clinging to the rigging, and the mackerel swimming in and out of the open portholes; of the little barnacles who are great travellers, and cling to the keels of the ships and go round and round the world; and of the cuttlefish who live in the sides of the cliffs and stretch out their long black ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde |
