"Binnacle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sun went down. We then changed our course a point or two and threw a sail over the binnacle light so that the suspected pirates could not follow us; and thus we escaped what might have been ...
— Piracy off the Florida Coast and Elsewhere • Samuel A. Green
... we treated them with hard-tack crumbs and whale-oil. They fell to dancing, and we to laughing,—they danced more and we laughed more, till the oldest woman tumbled in her bear-skin bloomers, and came with a smash right on the little cast-iron frame by the wheel, which screened binnacle and compass. My dear child, there was such a hullalu and such a mess together as I remember now. We had to apologize, the doctor set her head as well as he could. We gave them gingerbread from the cabin, to console them, and got ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... up with his face near the deck, upon which men swung on the ends of ropes, like nest robbers upon a cliff. One of his feet was on somebody's chest; his face was purple; his lips moved. He yelled also; he yelled, bending down:—"No! No!" Mr. Baker, one leg over the binnacle-stand, roared out:—"Did you say no? Not cut?" He shook his head madly. "No! No!" Between his legs the crawling carpenter heard, collapsed at once, and lay full length in the angle of the skylight. Voices took up the shout—"No! No!" Then all became still. They waited for the ship to turn ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... the binnacle, and the light of its lamp fell on a stamped envelope which he took out of his breast-pocket from time to time that he might ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Fronting the seat the binnacle hangs with its tender thrilling compass inside, well protected by thick plate glass, and the lamp, which is always ready to be lighted up should darkness need it; for experience has showed me only too plainly that it will not do to postpone any ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... which was decorated with wondrous richness. In the centre stood a cabin, its entablature surmounted with a row of uraeus-snakes, the angles squared to the shape of pillars, and the walls adorned with designs. A binnacle with pointed roof stood on the poop, and was matched at the other end by a sort of altar enriched with paintings. The rudder consisted of two huge sweeps, ending in heads of Hathor, that were fastened with long strips of stuff and worked upon hollow posts. On the mast shivered—for the east ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... there were no guns or carronades of any kind in the vessel, which had more the appearance of a fast-sailing trader than a pirate. But I was struck with the neatness of everything. The brass work of the binnacle and about the tiller, as well as the copper belaying-pins, were as brightly polished as if they had just come from the foundry. The decks were pure white, and smooth. The masts were clean-scraped and varnished except at the cross-trees and truck, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... received the spokes and the course from the rather distressed incumbent, and, even though the ship was riding along before a stiff quartering breeze and following sea, steered a course good enough to win silence from the skipper—another big, bearded man—when he next looked into the binnacle. Silence, on such occasions, is ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... but the matches in the ship hung fire; and when a passenger at length produced a light, it was discovered that the lamp in the binnacle was without that essential article, oil. Meanwhile no one had ascertained what had caused the heavy smash at the outset, and certain timid persons, in the idea that a hole had been knocked in the ship's side, were in continual apprehension ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... out the binnacle-light and holds it to my face. He was young L'Estrange, my full cousin, that I hadn't seen since the night the smack sank off ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... watch. When Mister Lynch, and his familiars (of whom more anon), had gone forward to a job, she suddenly stepped out of the companion hatch and flitted aft towards me. Then, when she was close enough to discern my features by the reflection from the binnacle lights, she stopped. I heard a sort of gasping sigh that meant, I knew, disappointment, and she moved over to the rail, and stood ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... clothed, when they made their escape; but the seamen on the watch, in consequence of the heavy rain, having cased themselves in double or treble dresses, supplied their supernumerary articles of clothing to those who had none. We happily succeeded in bringing away two compasses from the binnacle, and a few candles from the cuddy-table, one of them lighted; one bottle of wine, and another of porter, were handed to us, with the tablecloth and a knife, which proved very useful; but the fire raged so fiercely in the body of the vessel, that neither bread nor water could be obtained. ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... the chair in all his imposing stature and walked across to the binnacle, holding such an unswerving course that the other had to back away hurriedly, and remained as if intimidated, with the pipe trembling in his hand. "Walk over me now," he muttered in a sort of astounded and discomfited whisper. Then slowly ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... forward I met Ransome bringing up the spare binnacle lamp. That man noticed everything, attended to everything, shed comfort around him as he moved. As he passed me he remarked in a soothing tone that the stars were coming out. They were. The breeze was sweeping clear the sooty ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... Jack and Mesty led the way aft; not a soul was to be seen: indeed, it was too dark to see anybody unless they were walking the deck. The companion-hatch was secured, and the gratings laid on the after-hatchways, and then they went aft to the binnacle again, where there was a light burning. Mesty ordered two of the men to go forward to secure the hatches, and then to remain there on guard—and then the rest of the men and our ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... the binnacle I could just see the coil of rope unwind as it left his hand; but I could not see where it fell; I knew that there would be no time for another throw; and it seemed to me that my heart did not beat again until I heard from the bow of the sloop a cheery shout of "All right! I've got the line! ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... night, as was then my somewhat dangerous practice, on deck upon the cockpit bench. A stir at last awoke me, to see all the eastern heaven dyed with faint orange, the binnacle lamp already dulled against the brightness of the day, and the steersman leaning eagerly across the wheel. 'There it is, sir!' he cried, and pointed in the very eyeball of the dawn. For awhile I could see nothing but the bluish ruins of the morning bank, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ascended to the quarter-deck where the mate stood leaning over the rail and uttering directed curses from between sweat-beaded lips. There the big man roamed aimlessly on what seemed to be a tour of casual inspection. Once he stopped to breathe on the brass binnacle and to rub it bright with the dirtiest red bandana handkerchief I ever want ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... he was much surprised at several articles on board particularly the compasses in the binnacle. "On my conducting him down into the cabin and placing him before a looking-glass he expressed wonder by innumerable gestures, attitudes and grimaces. He narrowly examined it to see if any one was behind it; and he did not seem satisfied till I unscrewed it from the place it was fastened ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... to be moving along a line that'll cross somewhere northard of New Zealand," Daughtry guessed to himself, after a hundred stolen glances into the binnacle. But that was all the information concerning the ship's navigation he could steal; for Captain Doane took the observations and worked them out, to the exclusion of the mate, and Captain Doane always methodically locked ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... you.' The light from his open door disappeared with a bang, and I was left alone in a dripping, yellow darkness. I have been in the Navy for ten years, but I have never known such a fog as that of last night, not even among the icebergs of Behring Sea. There one at least could see the light of the binnacle, but last night I could not even distinguish the hand by which I guided myself along the barrack wall. At sea a fog is a natural phenomenon. It is as familiar as the rainbow which follows a storm, it is as proper that a fog should spread upon the waters as that steam shall rise ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis
... new from the electric illumination of the hold, the blackness was positive, with the palpable quality of an element, relieved alone by the dull glow of the binnacle housing the gyroscope telltale, from which the faintest of golden reflections struck back to pick out a pair of seemingly severed fists gripping the handles of the bridge steering wheel with a singular effect ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... the water and supporting a slightly higher platform, from which rose what seemed to be a squatty funnel. A moment later we saw that the funnel was provided with a cap somewhat resembling a tall silk hat, the crown of which was represented by a brass binnacle. This cap was tilted back, and as we ran alongside, a man stuck his head up over the rim ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... ropes, and the canvas soaking up the damp till every stretch might have been owned for the matter of color by a coalman. 'Twas 'bout ship often enough, Mr. Robinson being full of anxiety and impatience, and watching the compass for a shift of wind as if he was a cat and there was a mouse in the binnacle. I could have sworn the handsome party would have been beam-ended by the dance; it turned the stomachs of two of the crew, anyhow, and one of them said that if he had known the 'Evangeline' was to cross the bay, he'd have ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... the binnacle lantern fell on the face of Bentley; tears were standing in the old man's eyes as he looked at them, and he said slowly, as if in ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... followed by an indefinite period of gasping oblivion. Something that felt like a moving rock rose up beneath his feet. He was driven clear out of the water and seemed to recognize a familiar object rising rigid and bright close at hand. It was the binnacle pillar, screwed to a portion of the deck which came away from the charthouse and was rent from the upper framework ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... moonlight nights, when on my watch, I see your form, dear Magde, bright and beautiful, as I look over the wake of the vessel. And when the night is dark and cloudy, I see you sitting by my side, the binnacle light shining upon your pleasant face, which is illumined with smiles as I gaze upon little Conrad, whom I imagine a fine full grown lad, climbing the shrouds with all the eagerness of a competent sailor. But, belay, otherwise my letter ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... I saw was old Eaton at work at the tiller. He got it unshipped and braced up with a pair of oars and a hencoop, without waking the man at the helm,—how, I couldn't tell,—but he was just like a cat; and then he blew the binnacle-light out; and then he started forrard, with his trumpet in his hand. He caught sight of me, standing halfway up the companion-way, and shook his fist at me to keep quiet and not to spoil sport. He slipped forward and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... may have no prick of conscience and yet have done a very wrong thing. So we want, as it seems to me, something outside of ourselves that shall not be affected by our variations. Conscience is like the light on the binnacle of a ship. It tosses up and down along with the vessel. We want a steady light yonder on that headland, on the fixed solid earth, which shall not heave with the heaving wave, nor vary at all. Conscience speaks lowest when it ought to speak loudest. The worst man is least troubled by his conscience. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... sir," quavered Matt. "I thought something like this might happen, and in order to be prepared for eventualities I hung a fire bucket over the edge of the weather-bridge railing and set another there by the binnacle. The man at the wheel got me started, sir. He asked me if I liked fat pork. Can't you see that if I had made a quick run for the lee rail while the vessel was pitching to leeward the chances are I'd continue right ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... the summer evening lasted for some time after. Then darkness came down over the sea, and it was desolate except for the sidelights of distant craft. The mate drew out his watch and by the light of the binnacle-lamp, saw that it was ten minutes to ten. At the same moment he heard somebody moving ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... wind, and began the long vigil which would only end when the second officer relieved him, four hours later. Conversation—except in the line of duty—was forbidden among the bridge officers of the Titan, and his watchmate, the third officer, stood on the other side of the large bridge binnacle, only leaving this position occasionally to glance in at the compass—which seemed to be his sole duty at sea. Sheltered by one of the deck-houses below, the boatswain and the watch paced back and forth, enjoying ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... what kind of wine we preferred I must say I was struck all in a heap, for wines to Jone and me is like a trackless wilderness without compass or binnacle light, and we seldom drink them except made hot, with nutmeg grated in, for colic; but as I wanted her to understand that if there was any luxuries we didn't order it was because we didn't approve of them, I told her that we was total abstainers, ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... slow; The waves against the sides incessant breaking, And rope and canvas swaying to and fro. The topmost sail, it seems like some dim pinnacle Cresting a shadowy tower amid the air; While red and fitful gleams come from the binnacle, The only light ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... the Ocean's cabins were on the main deck, and also on the raised half-deck at the stern, near the wheel, the binnacle and the officers' corned-beef tubs, swinging in their frames. From this upper deck two flights of steps led down to the main deck below. At the top of one of these flights stood young Pearson, cool and alert. Behind him half crouched the Japanese steward, evidently very much frightened. At the foot ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... it?" I asked in a deadened voice, taking the lighted lamp out of the binnacle, and raising it ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... a tin of vaseline, and coated the poor man's hurts as well as I could. Then, as he still groaned, though more feebly, I got out my phial of morphia and a needle. As I held the bottle against a sort of binnacle-light by which Macnaughten sat steering, I caught his eyes staring down on me, quiet and solemn. I tell you, that man was ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... heavily from the funnel its immense streamer, whose end was constantly dissolving in the air. Two Malays, silent and almost motionless, steered, one on each side of the wheel, whose brass rim shone fragmentarily in the oval of light thrown out by the binnacle. Now and then a hand, with black fingers alternately letting go and catching hold of revolving spokes, appeared in the illumined part; the links of wheel-chains ground heavily in the grooves of the barrel. Jim would glance ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... morning, we made sail to the North by West, but, from the compass-box not being quite straight in the binnacle, we made a North by West 1/2 West course, which was not discovered until we had nearly paid dear for our neglect; for we passed close to a rock which I intended to have gone at least a mile to windward ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... in five hours of the country that we was going to introduce to long drinks and short change the captain calls us over to the starboard binnacle and recollects ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... telescope from its case in front of the wooden binnacle-box and squinted long at the edge of the creek. Crude though the glass was, he was enabled to discern that the object was, in truth, a log, but evidently hollowed out. Rounded at the ends, it held two men whose ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... watch further, so I strolled aft and climbed the poop. In the lee of the chart-house Captain West and the pilot were pacing slowly up and down. Passing on aft, I saw steering at the wheel the weazened little old man I had noted earlier in the day. In the light of the binnacle his small blue eyes looked more malevolent than ever. So weazened and tiny was he, and so large was the brass-studded wheel, that they seemed of a height. His face was withered, scorched, and wrinkled, and in all ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... doorway, and out on deck. The blood from his nose gushed in a scarlet stream over the feet of the helmsman, who was none other than Louis, his boat-mate. But Louis took and gave a spoke and gazed imperturbably into the binnacle. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... mid-watch, and the schooner, with the spray dashing wildly about her bows and everything drawing, was running before a strong wind through darkness so black that her flying-jib-boom could not be seen, and there was no light on board except the one in the binnacle. ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... instrument was spinning round and round at an almost perpendicular angle in the binnacle with tremendous velocity. The pointer tore round its points like the hands of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... remained in command of the "Serapis." Seating himself on the binnacle, he ordered the lashings which had bound the two ships throughout the bloody conflict to be cut. Then the head-sails were braced back, and the wheel put down. But, as the ship had been anchored at the beginning of the battle, she refused to answer ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... survived the tenderness of Anacreon. Nevertheless, this brought the irksomeness of our situation to a climax, and P—— made up his mind to call on the Consul in the morning. For my part, I believe, I became feverish through the night, and in my sleep talked to the binnacle about Magna Charta. ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... "folks hed better steer by facts sometimes, than by yarns. It's jest like v'yagin'; yew do'no' sumtimes what's to pay with a compass; it'll go all p'ints to once; mebbe somebody's got a hatchet near by, or some lubber's throwed a chain down by the binnacle, or some darned thing's got inside on't, or it's shipped a sea an' got rusted; but there's allers the Dipper an' the North Star; they're allers true to their bearin's, and you can't go to Davy Jones's locker ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... and Captain Price knew her as he knew the palms of his hands. Screened behind the high weather-cloths, he drove her into it, while the tall seas filled her forward main deck rail-deep and her bows pounded away in a mast-high smother of spray. From the binnacle amidships to the weather wing of the bridge was his dominion, while the watch officer straddled down to leeward; both with eyes boring at the darkness ahead and on either beam, where there came and went the pin-point ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... He has put into Bar Harbor on a yachting trip. He sits writing late at night by the light of the binnacle lamp.) ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... condescension in throwing down the rope in answer to my despairing cries. On the other hand, the helmsman, the only other person aft, was so astounded as to become quite speechless. I could see, in the light of the binnacle thrown upon his face, his staring eyes and ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... back quietly to his berth, and if he could gain any further information, to try and let Mr Henley or me know. I immediately dressed, and, followed by Solon, who jumped up as soon as he saw me afoot, went on deck. I found Mr Henley standing near the binnacle. It was a star-lit night. He was noting the bearing of the stars ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston |
