"Mainmast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her boilers when near the head of the South-west Pass [which we had but just passed], 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, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... thunderstorm on the 12th, a Dutch East Indiaman, about two cables away from the Endeavour, had mainmast "split all to shivers." ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... followed her example. Hydra hesitated, and at first even declined to do so; but, at last, on the 28th of April, this island also issued a manifesto of adherence to the patriotic cause. On the third of May, a squadron of eleven Hydriot and seven Spezzia vessels sailed from Hydra, having on the mainmast "an address to the people of the Egean sea, inviting them to rally round the national standard: an address that was received with enthusiasm in every quarter of the Archipelago where the Turks were not numerous enough ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... rigged upon the mainmast, and this morning, after breakfast, Mr. Whitney, three Esquimos, and myself started in Mr. Whitney's motor-boat to hunt walrus. The motor gave out very shortly after the start, and the oars had to be used. We were fortunate in getting two walrus, ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... in sunshine abreast of the mainmast. He held her hands and looked down at them, and she looked up at him with her candid and unseeing glance. It seemed to me they had come together as if attracted, drawn and guided to each other by a mysterious influence. They were a complete ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... had all gained the shore, the day was far spent; the natives, who were of the Caffre race, and who had been busy in obtaining all the iron that they could from the mainmast, which had drifted on shore, left the beach at dark. The wretched sufferers lighted fires, and having collected some casks of beef and flour, and some live stock, they remained on the rocks during that night. The ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... bound by law nor by the usages of parliament. The debate on the question was one of great violence; and in the course of it, Colonel Barre compared the state to a vessel in a storm which had parted with her mainmast (Grafton,) and was trying to sail under a jury-mast (North). The new premier acknowledged that the storm was great, but asserted that the ship was not compelled to hang out lights for pilots, as her own crew were capable of conducting her safely ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of a type not seen to-day made up the greater part of the New England fleet. The ketch, often referred to in early annals, was a two-master, sometimes rigged with lanteen sails, but more often with the foremast square-rigged, like a ship's foremast, and the mainmast like the mizzen of a modern bark, with a square topsail surmounting a fore-and-aft mainsail. The foremast was set very much aft—often nearly amidships. The snow was practically a brig, carrying a fore-and-aft sail on the mainmast, with a square sail directly above ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... 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 catheads; a peculiarity which ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... be here 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 ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... 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 ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... his hand on the mainmast, in the manner in which another might drop a palm on the shoulder of a departing faithful companion, and the wind in the rigging vibrated through the wood like a sentient and affectionate response. Then he went resolutely down into ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... I saw it, just abreast of the mainmast, crouched down in the shadow of the weather rail, sneaking off forward very slowly. This time I took a good long sight before I let go. Did you ever happen to see black-powder smoke in the moonlight? ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... two masts, in an Indian hammock, lay Featherstone, with a cigar in his mouth and a novel in his hand, which he was pretending to read. The fourth member of the party, Melick, was seated near the mainmast, folding some papers in a peculiar way. His occupation at length attracted the roving eyes of Featherstone, who poked forth his head from his hammock, and said in a ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... wheel; and the other man, who was equally 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 ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... being then due east. We ourselves lay to under a reefed mizzen till noon, when the fog dispersed; and we soon discovered all the ships of the squadron, except the Pearl, which did not join us till near a month afterwards. The Trial sloop was a great way to leeward, having lost her mainmast in this squall, and having been obliged, for fear of bilging, to cut away the wreck. We bore down with the squadron to her relief, and the Gloucester was ordered to take her in tow, for the weather did not entirely abate until the day after, and even then a great swell ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... 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, and weighing surely thirty-five hundred pounds. Where ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... Fingal bothered the great Scotch giant, 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 see what he's made ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... Englishmen who saw 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 ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... through the Golden Gate, swimming on that sheen of gold, a mere shadow, specked with lights red and green. In a few moments her bows were shut from sight by the old fort at the Gate. Then her red light vanished, then the mainmast. She was gone. By midnight she would be out of sight of land, rolling on the swell of the lonely ocean ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... the greatest is 21 inches in compass, and weighs 9,000 lbs., her least cable being eight inches in compass, weighing near 1,300 lbs. To the Royal Sovereign belong eighteen masts and yards: whereof the greatest, called the mainmast, is 113 feet long, and 38 inches diameter; her main yard 102 feet long, and 23 inches diameter; and her main top, 15 feet diameter. She hath ten several sorts of sails of several names (as every ship of every one ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... 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 ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... and "Driving-Scud" and "Mazeppa," in the great Sea-Derby, whose course lay round the world. How, one Christmas-day, off the pitch of Cape Horn, he, standing on her deck, saw her dive bodily into a sea, and all of her to the mainmast was lost in ocean,—her stately spars seemingly rising out of blue water unsupported by any ship beneath;—it seemed an age to him, he said, before there was any forecastle to be seen rising from the brine. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... too," I replied; "but we find that the head of the mainmast is sprung, and we must have a new one. I have just come from the owner's, and must set to work at once, and get ready for shifting our mast. So, fare you well, if I do not see you ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... has roared, (Gun-deck and berth-deck blood-wet!) Her mainmast's gone by the board, Down come topsail and jib! We're smashing her, rib by rib, And the pirate yells grow weak,— But the Black Flag flies there yet, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... mate, took his place. After that we had a hard time enough. I thought it was bad at first, but it wasn't nothing to that. He was always walloping us boys, and swearing and kicking and cuffing us about. Then we had a storm, and lost our mainmast, and came near foundering; and then we were stuck in a calm for three weeks, and the water aboard ran short. That was the time I had the fever. I'd have died, I know, if it hadn't been for Tad Brice. He was one of the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... of those days there must have been many discomforts, even in a pleasant season, and no doubt some of the people were seasick. An old record of that time says, "We fetched out the children and others that lay groaning in the cabins, and having stretched a rope from the steerage to the mainmast, made them stand some on one side and some on the other and sway it up and down till they were warm. By this means they soon grew well and merry. ... When the ship heaved and set more than usual a few were sick, but of these such as came upon deck and bestirred themselves ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... like a flying rocket, and fell athwart the wreck between her forestay and jib. A cheer went up from the men about the gun. When this line was hauled in and the hawser attached to it made fast high up on the mainmast and above the raging sea, and the car run off to the wreck, the crew could be landed clear of the surf and the slam ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... lakes and rivers at this time was limited to three types of vessel, the "snow," a three-master with a try-sail abaft the mainmast, the schooner, the batteau and the birch canoe, and, in closely land-locked waters, the horse ferry. The Durham boat, a batteau on a larger scale with false keel, had yet to be introduced. The bark canoe, which for certain purposes has never been improved upon—not even excepting the cedar-built ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... the location 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 ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... since. Nevertheless, though nobody could call her a dry boat, she will behave herself in any ordinary sea, and come about quicker than most of her type. She is fast, has sound timbers and sheathing that fits her like a skin, and her mainmast and bowsprit are particularly fine spars of Oregon pine; her mizzen doesn't count for much. Let me mention the newest of patent capstans—I put this into her myself—cabins panelled in teak and pitch-pine and cushioned with red morocco, two suits ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... secure foremast; Port main rigging and main stays disabled, to secure mainmast; To fish a lower mast and yard; Steering apparatus disabled, what means of ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... westward in the Nicholas Channel, off the northerly coast of the Island of Cuba. There was a high sea running, but the ship stood up well, and the few men who were on deck could get about easily. Even a boy of apparently not over seventeen, who came to a halt near the mainmast, managed to keep his balance with some help from a rope. That he did so was a credit to him, and it helped to give him a sailor-like and jaunty air. So did his blue trousers, blue flannel shirt with a wide collar, and ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... 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, ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... just under the ship's stern, and the shot was dancing away to leeward. The next shot struck the merchantman on the quarter. A moment later the vessel was brought up into the wind and a broadside of eight guns fired. Two of them struck the hull of the privateer, another wounded the mainmast, while the rest cut holes through the sails and struck the water a quarter of a mile to windward. With an oath the captain of the privateer brought his vessel up into the wind, and then payed off ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... very tread soundin' hollow and uncanny in that awful silence. Not a livin' thing was there aboard, not even a mouse. The mainmast was gone, all but a stump, and the moulderin' tackle lay on the deck all of a heap. The plankin' was rotten and fallin' to bits, and the place on the starn where her name had been was clean mouldered away. All at once our coxswain, Bill Grimes, gives a jump and a holler as if he'd trod ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... as 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 for ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... 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 ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... Sunday at sea. Early in the morning I heard the captain order the boatswain to pipe all hands to prayers. I had noticed nothing of a religious nature in the man, and, full of curiosity, went on deck with the rest. Captain Burrows took off his hat at the foot of the mainmast, and said: ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... the hardest blow the Mary Turner had received. Stays and splinters of rail flew in the air as she rolled so far over as to expose half her copper wet-glistening in the sun. As she righted sluggishly, the mainmast swayed drunkenly in the air ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Dutch words which have resounded through the world, "Neen nimmer," "No, never." The fleets of Spain heard it, and understood it fully, when they saw the sinking Dutch ships with the flags nailed to the shattered mainmast, crying, "Neen nimmer," which indicated that they would ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... 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, ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... in one mouthful, and the only thing that he spat out was the mainmast, that had stuck between his teeth like a fish-bone. Fortunately for me, the vessel was laden with preserved meat in tins, biscuit, bottles of wine, dried raisins, cheese, coffee, sugar, candles, and boxes of wax matches. With this providential ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... 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 clear and perfect, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... water right under the bows of the 'Maid,' flinging up a fountain which rose as high as the mainmast, and deluging the ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... of which opened into the hold and were lighted by glazed portholes. In stowing the cargo a passage was left between the packages of which it consisted. These vessels had a mast on each deck. The foremast was called Paul, the mainmast Peter—the ship being sailed by these two masts, as the Church was guided by her two apostles. A gangway was thrown, like a Chinese bridge, from one deck to the other, over the centre of the hold. In bad weather, both flaps of the gangway were lowered, on the right and left, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... time through shoal water, the bottom having been evidently stirred up. The adjacent land seemed eroded in a remarkable manner. It has its floods, which excavate these valleys and ravines, and leave those singular ridges behind. Towards evening I climbed the mainmast, and, standing on the cross-trees, saw the sun set amid a blaze of fiery clouds. The wind was strong and bitterly cold, and I was glad to slide back to the deck along a rope, which stretched from the mast-head to the ship's side. That night we ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... simultaneously; and photograph, not only the whole horizon as seen from the deck of a vessel, but, because of the greater elevation, many miles beyond. A battle-ship provided with this photographing device would enjoy as great an advantage as if it were able at will to stretch out its mainmast into a tower ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... fractures in the masts, which are set into the framework of the keel and rise above the decks of ships like great, round pillars. The convulsive blows of the cannon had cracked the mizzenmast, and had cut into the mainmast. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... holds. For this purpose three powerful pumps, with the necessary boilers, were obtained from Halifax, sent by rail to Annapolis, and then shipped on board a tug, from which they were hoisted into the Ulunda by means of the derricks on the mainmast. These were centrifugal pumps, capable of discharging 2,000 gallons a minute each. One was placed in the engine room, another with its suction in No. 3 hold, and when these two compartments were pumped dry, it was found that in No. 3 hold the leak was easily kept under, while in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... village were now on the shore, and were eager to render any assistance, if it were possible. In another minute or two, a general cry announced that the ship had struck. Rising high on a wave, she came down with a force which caused her mainmast at once to go over the side. Another lift on the next sea and then, high and fast, she was jammed on the rocks of the Black Shoal. The distance from shore was but small, not more than three hundred yards, and the shouts of the sailors on board ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... 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,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... gutter boy, Greene, was the most poorly clad of all, Hudson gave the dead man's overcoat to the London lad. Instantly there was wild outcry from the other men. It was customary to auction a dead seaman's clothes from the mainmast. Why had the commander shown favour? In disgust Hudson turned the coat over to the new mate—thereby adding fresh fuel to the crew's wrath and making Greene a real source of danger. Greene was, to be sure, only a youth, but small snakes ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... telegraphed to me to 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. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... mantelpiece, and by their side, and pinned against the wall, a small sketch of a ship sent four years ago from the Mediterranean by William, with H.M.S. Antwerp at the bottom, in letters as tall as the mainmast. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... 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 ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... growing tired of the misery around me, I crawled over to the end of the farther cabin, which seemed to be deserted. Presently the captain and my father came down the stairs and I heard the officer say in a hoarse whisper. 'I will not deceive you, Mr. Hunt; the mainmast is down, the steering gear useless, the crew is not up to its business, and I fear we cannot weather the night!' I almost screamed aloud in my fright, but just then a long, lanky figure rose from the floor where it had been lying. It was one of the ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... if he had had time, the Arab cavalry could have picked them up anywhere. And he was afraid of their camels with those light guns on board, he had heard they could do seven knots and keep it up most of the day and if as much as one shot struck the mainmast... and Shard taking his mind off useless fears worked out on his chart when the Arabs were likely to overtake them. He told his men that the wind would hold good for a week, and, gipsy or no, he certainly knew as much about the wind as is good for ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... his course. While rounding Cape Borgador near Cagayan one fair morning at dawn, they found themselves near a Japanese ship, which Juan Pablo engaged with the admiral's galley in which he himself was. With his artillery he shot away their mainmast, and killed several men. The Japanese put out grappling-irons and poured two hundred men aboard the galley, armed with pikes and breastplates. There remained sixty arquebusiers firing at our men. Finally, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, Her rudder gone, her mainmast o'er the side; Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch staggering free, Trailed threads of priceless crimson through the tide; Sails, shrouds, and spars with pirate cannon torn, We lay, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... the shore we could see the mainmast of the barque floating upon the waves, disappearing at times in the trough of the sea, and then shooting up towards Heaven like a giant javelin, shining and dripping as the rollers tossed it about. Other smaller pieces of wreckage dotted the waters, while ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... morn, as 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 ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... the ship 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 until the mast ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... corner, when it happened—whether on the passage out or home the bottle could not tell, for it had never been ashore—that a storm arose; great waves came careering along, darkly and heavily, and lifted and tossed the ship to and fro. The mainmast was shivered, and a wave started one of the planks, and the pumps became useless. It was black night. The ship sank; but at the last moment the young mate wrote on a leaf of paper, "God's will be done! We are sinking!" He wrote the name of his betrothed, and his own name, and that of ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... make three partners with a step cut in each, these being intended to take the heels of the three masts, and when these were completed, they bolted them securely to the decks at the fore part of each one of the stumps of the three lower-masts. And so, having all ready, we hove the mainmast into position, after which we proceeded to rig it. Now, when we had made an end of this, we set-to upon the foremast, using for this the foretopmast which they had saved, and after that we hove the mizzenmast into place, having for this the ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... 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 trying to communicate that she was making a ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... was smashed to bits by a Japanese explosive shell just as it was raising a launch, the same shot carrying off the third funnel just behind it. When Togo's last ship had left the Connecticut behind, only one funnel full of gaping holes and half of the mainmast were left standing on the deck of the admiral's flag-ship, which presented a wild chaos of bent and broken ironwork. Through the ruins of the deck structures rose the flames and ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... was met at the landing-place by the equipage-master, and he furnished me with a carriage to carry me to the governor, whose residence is about two miles from the town of Samarang. I requested and obtained leave to have our wants supplied, which were to recruit our provisions, and to get a any mainmast, having sprung ours in the ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... of a large 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 he ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... through two square openings into a lower or half deck 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 ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... A creaking from the mainmast told that it might fall at any moment. Passengers and crew redoubled their shouts to Poseidon and to Zeus of AEgina. A fat passenger staggered from his cabin, a huge money-bag bound to his belt,—as ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... entrusted with the voyage, in some measure; that if they miscarried, the ship might be lost for want of their help, and that they could not answer for it to God or man. But I might as well have talked to the mainmast of the ship: they were mad upon their journey; only they gave me good words, and begged I would not be angry; that they did not doubt but they would be back again in about an hour at furthest; for the Indian town, they said, was not above half-a mile off, though they found it above two ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... When one dire shot, the last they could supply, Close by the board the prince's mainmast bore: All three now helpless by each other lie, And this offends not, and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... two masts, a mainmast and a mizzen or dandy mast. The former was 6 feet long and the latter 4 feet long, and each measured 1-1/2 inches in diameter at the base, tapering to about 1 inch diameter at the upper end. They were ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... day or two before I had been shooting whistlers (golden-eye ducks) over decoys. The blind had been made by digging a hole in the sand. In the bottom was an armful of dry seaweed, to keep one's toes warm, and just behind the stand was the stump of a ship's mainmast, the relic of some old storm and shipwreck, cast ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... gave way, and the junk drifted astern, with five men still remaining on board. Sail was immediately made, and in a short time we ran alongside of her, staving in her bulwarks, for both vessels were rolling heavily. Fortunately her mainmast had gone by the board; had it been still standing, and had become locked in our rigging, we should have been in great peril ourselves. The remaining five men and a dog gained the ship, and the junk again went astern, and in three minutes afterwards went to the ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... the Story of the honest Dutchman, who, upon breaking his Leg by a Fall from the Mainmast, told the Standers-by, It was a great Mercy that 'twas not his Neck. To which, since I am got into Quotations, give me leave to add the Saying of an old Philosopher, who, after having invited some of his Friends to dine with him, was ruffled by his Wife ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the job, but doesn't like to show funk, either—and he goes. Lots of water on the main-deck, and he splashes along; it was getting dark, too. All at once, by the mainmast, somebody catches him by the arm. Stafford. He wasn't thinking of Stafford at all. Captain Harry had said something as to the mate not being quite satisfactory, but it wasn't much. Cloete doesn't recognise him in his oilskins at first. He sees a white face with big eyes ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... also as the lower masts, are the foremast, mainmast and mizzenmast, and each of these carries two masts by way of continuations. Thus we have foretopmast, maintopmast and mizzentopmast, and over them foretopgallantmast, maintopgallantmast ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... Spanish, stuck fast, jammed in between two rocks. All the stern and quarter of her were beaten to pieces by the sea; and as her forecastle, which stuck in the rocks, had run on with great violence, her mainmast and foremast were brought by the board - that is to say, broken short off; but her bowsprit was sound, and the head and bow appeared firm. When I came close to her, a dog appeared upon her, who, seeing me coming, yelped and cried; and as soon as I called him, jumped ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... measure dear to you, confide now in Brangaene!" The unhappy Isolde, suffocating, gasps for air: "Air!... Air!... My heart is smothering!... Open! Open wide!" Brangaene hurriedly draws apart the tapestries which form the wall of the apartment at the back. The deck of the ship is seen from mainmast to stern; sailors busy with ropes, groups of knights and their esquires lounging. Tristan stands apart from the rest, with folded arms, staring abstractedly over the water. His servant Kurwenal lies idly outstretched at his feet. Isolde's eyes at once ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... black trough, and rose bravely to the foaming crest. The little mermaid thought it was a merry journey, but the sailors were of a different opinion. The ship strained and creaked; the timbers shivered as the thunder strokes of the waves fell fast; heavy seas swept the decks; the mainmast snapped like a reed; and the ship lurched heavily, while the water rushed into the hold. Then the young princess began to understand the danger, and she herself was often threatened by the falling masts, yards, and spars. One moment it was so dark that she could see nothing, but ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... a number of packages under his arm. I was sure it was the mate, and my suspicions were aroused, though I could scarcely tell what he was going to do. I pointed him out to Stanley, who was standing near the mainmast. "We will follow him, at all events," he answered. As we got aft we saw him leaning over the quarter, and evidently engaged in hauling ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... up, lads," Will shouted; "we shall finish with her before the other can come up." As he spoke a shot from the long-tom struck the cutter's mainmast, which tottered for a moment and then fell over her side towards L'Agile, and the sails and hamper entirely prevented the crew from working her guns. For another five minutes the fire was kept up; then the crew were seen ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... did not take my sailor instinct long to guess what was amiss. Those in front shot side to side, those behind tried to drop back as, bearing straight down on the royal barge, there came a log of black wood twenty feet long and as thick as the mainmast of an old three-decker. ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... than an East India-man in the northeast trades with the captain on the quarter-deck in a cocked hat and sword, the shoals of flying fish and albacore skittering about a transom as high and carved and gilded as a church, the royal pennant at the mainmast head. Maybe it would be the Earl of Balcarras with her cannons shining and the ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... family on board of the vessel commanded by the Adelantado, and, sending back the damaged ship to port, continued on his course. Throughout the voyage he experienced the most tempestuous weather. In one storm the mainmast was sprung in four places. He was confined to his bed at the time by the gout; by his advice, however, and the activity of the Adelantado, the damage was skillfully repaired; the mast was shortened; the weak parts were ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... print, 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 surprisingly slight damage done ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... his way towards the kitchen, intending to look for matches and a lantern. Although the sea was very rough, he noticed that the ship did not move, a fact which astonished him very much. But when he came to the mainmast, he was even more astonished to find himself walking on a parqueted floor, partly covered by a strip of carpet of a small blue and white checked pattern. He walked and walked, but still the carpet stretched before him, and still he came no nearer ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... port, where a ship was never known 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 ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... a will towards the still-distant ship. As we neared her, we observed that she must have encountered very heavy weather, as part of her foremast and mainmast had been carried away. Her sides looked dirty and worn, and all her ironwork was rusty, as if she had been a long time at sea. She proved to be the 'Lord Raglan,' of about 800 tons, bound from Bankok, ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... somewhat slightly from a brig. It had two masts similar to the fore and mainmasts of a brig or ship, and, close abaft the mainmast, a topsail mast. ...
— The Beginning Of The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... down, and farther down, Her love's ship for to see, And the topmast and the mainmast Shone like the ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... both ends and produced a regular see-saw, as the Spanish crew of 1893 found to their cost when pitching horribly through a buffeting head sea. The Santa Maria, like most 'Spaniards,' had a lateen-rigged mizzen. {50} But the Grande Hermine had no mizzen, only the square-rigged mainmast, foremast, and bowsprit. The bowsprit of those days was a mast set at an angle of forty-five; and it sometimes, as in the Grande Hermine, carried a little upright ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... and deserted, Only close beside the mainmast Stands a lonely child, heartbroken, Sobbing ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... and his master were again released, Ledscha was standing, in the dusk of evening, at the foot of the mainmast, pressing her brow against the wood as if she needed some support to save herself ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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 ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... again off Emden, she still had her colours up at mainmast head. I inquired by signal, International Code, "Will you surrender?" and received a reply in Morse, "What signal? No signal books." I then made in Morse, "Do you surrender?" and subsequently, "Have ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... mountains high: I could see nothing but distress around us; two ships had cut their masts on board, and another was foundered; two more that had lost their anchors, were forced out to the mercy of the ocean; and to save our lives we were forced to cut our foremast and mainmast quite away. ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... and spars were found erected in the fissures of the rocks at the projections of the cape, evidently placed there by the crew to attract the attention of vessels passing. The mizen mast and main topmast had been cut away, and there were a few marks of the axe upon her mainmast. The natives appeared to have taken notice of the ironwork, for some spike nails were found about their fireplaces; these traces, however, were not very recent, nor was it probable that any natives were upon the island at the time of ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... sort of faint perfume of adventure, and died before spring set in. But indubitably it was a company, it had even a house-flag, all white with the letters F. C. T. C. artfully tangled up in a complicated monogram. We flew it at our mainmast head, and now I have come to the conclusion that it was the only flag of its kind in existence. All the same we on board, for many days, had the impression of being a unit of a large fleet with fortnightly departures for Montreal ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... 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 ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and HELLI. But we read that in 1527 Simon de Melo was sent to burn ships in the River of Marabia and at Monte d'Elli.[1] When Da Gama on his second voyage was on his way from Baticala (in Canara) to Cananor, a squall having sprung his mainmast just before reaching Mt. d'Ely, "the captain-major anchored in the Bay of Marabia, because he saw there several Moorish ships, in order to get a mast from them." It seems clear that this was the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... daresay you will consider me an object of envy when I describe to you where I am,—on board of a magnificent ship-of-war, carrying sixty 68-pounders, our foremast and mainmast sails set, and gliding through the water with just motion enough to tell us that the pulse of the great sea is beating. The temperature of the air is high, but the day is somewhat cloudy, and the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... from rolling down it only by his own weight and the sun-blackened hand that lay outstretched upon the planks, his gaze wandered, but ever returned to the bell that hung, jammed with the dangerous heel-over of the vessel, in the small ornamental belfry immediately abaft the mainmast. The bell was of cast bronze, with half-obliterated bosses upon it that had been the heads of cherubs; but wind and salt spray had given it a thick incrustation of bright, beautiful, lichenous green. It was this colour that Abel Keeling's ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... 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 was, into ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... the "Phrygian" cap, being flanked on 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 monumental ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... until I can get in connection with the outside world. Then, perhaps, some one may know about this place, and a way out of it. One vessel has gone down here, and I don't care to be the next, and leave my mainmast sticking up out of the water to show folks the ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... shook his arm 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
... education prevailed so far, that he could not forbear taking me up in his right hand, and stroking me gently with the other, after a hearty fit of laughing, asked me, "whether I was a whig or tory?" Then turning to his first minister, who waited behind him with a white staff, near as tall as the mainmast of the Royal Sovereign, he observed "how contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as I: and yet," says he, "I dare engage these creatures have their titles and distinctions of honour; they contrive little ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... rests upon the sworn testimony of numerous competent witnesses before a formal Court of Inquiry.[353] By this it was found proved that the "Little Belt" fired the first gun, which by Rodgers' statement cut away a backstay and went into the mainmast. The batteries of both ships opened, and an engagement followed, lasting twelve or fifteen minutes, during which the "Little Belt," hopelessly inferior in force, was badly cut up, losing nine killed and ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... 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 carrying of sail when she encountered ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... calls to me, for he never stirred from us, "What the devil is friend William a-doing yonder?" says the captain; "has he any business upon, deck?" I stepped forward, and there was friend William, with two or three stout fellows, lashing the ship's bowsprit fast to our mainmast, for fear they should get away from us; and every now and then he pulled a bottle out of his pocket, and gave the men a dram to encourage them. The shot flew about his ears as thick as may be supposed in such an action, where the Portuguese, to give them their due, fought very briskly, believing ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... were of different bright colors; the vanes at the mast-heads were gilded; the three lions of Normandy were painted here and there; the figure-head was a child with a bent bow, its arrow pointed towards the land of England. At the mainmast-head floated a consecrated banner, which had ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... gushing Through hatches and seams; 'Tis roaring and rushing O'er keelson and beams; And nought save the lightning On mainmast or boom, At intervals brightening ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was a real John Bull, believed in work rather than prayer, at least so long as their position threatened sudden extinction. He observed the petitioner in the undignified position of kneeling in prayer beside the mainmast. It angered him so that he put a peremptory stop to his pleadings by bringing his foot violently in contact with the posterior portion of his body, simultaneously asking him, "Why the h—- he did not pray before? It's not a damned bit of good praying now the trouble has arisen! Get on to your ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... Long did rule them. The 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 for the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... shorn, and helpless wreck, rolling like a log in the trough of the sea. Hull sent an officer on board to inquire of Dacres whether he had struck his flag. Looking up and down, Dacres coolly replied, "Well, I don't know: our mizzenmast is gone, our mainmast is gone, and, upon the whole, you may say we have struck ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... silhouetted against the glow, old Kayak Bill stood alone. In his hazel eyes was the wistful look that crept there sometimes when he watched the domestic happiness of those about him. A-top the cabin by the mainmast Jean and Gregg stood looking back over the lengthening stretch of water. Kon Klayu lay, an oblong of jade in the amber light, ringed with a wreath of foam. A single gull winnowed across the vision calling ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... "The foot of the mainmast still hangs to the ship and the head rests on a rock," he said; "what is beyond I cannot tell, it may be water or it may be land, but the sea does not break over it; it is our only chance if we ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... that the crossbeam supporting the mainmast was split from end to end, and only the roof structure held it in place. Thus the trip had a warning lesson for them, and Harry was not slow to take advantage of it and ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... heard that the galleon collected the men in its small boats and finished its voyage, by taking another tack, as he heard from the natives of Camboanga. Therefore this witness never saw the said galleon again. He heard also that the said galleon had broken its mainmast. This is what he knows, and his deposition. It is the truth, on the oath that he took. He affirmed and ratified it. When this witness was asked if he had been in Maluco, and requested to tell what ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... his works of humour. Given a country of people six inches or sixty feet high, and by the mere process of the logic, a thousand wonderful absurdities are evolved, at so many stages of the calculation. Turning to the first minister who waited behind him with a white staff near as tall as the mainmast of the "Royal Sovereign," the King of Brobdingnag observes how contemptible a thing human grandeur is, as represented by such a contemptible little creature as Gulliver. "The Emperor of Lilliput's features are strong and masculine" ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... 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, ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... course; the dead trees, and the worm-eaten, powder-posted ones, will fall in the high winds, naturally. But old Bullion is safe. No rotten hollow in his old white-oak trunk;—sound as a ship's mainmast." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... this was done. There were two doors opening into the cuddy, one on each side of the mainmast, with a slide over each. Outside of these doors were two round holes, which I had sawed in the bulkhead for ventilation. By reaching the arm through one of these apertures the slide could be locked. I fastened Kate into the cuddy, and then gave her the key, with which she opened ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... spirit in this connection and from both Prince and King he received a good deal of favour. It was while cruising with him on board Shamrock II., off Southampton, (May 22, 1901) that a heavy wind unexpectedly strained the spars and gear too much and brought down the top-mast and mainmast in a sudden wreck which crashed over the side of the frail yacht. The danger to the King was very great and a difference of ten seconds in his position would probably have given fatal results. The visit to the ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... laid his finger on his nose, and winked at the mainmast. "There's few can show me the way, Jack," he answered softly; "very few. Now I want you to help me too; I want you to talk ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... steamer—a craft of perhaps 2,000 tons, painted black with a yellow funnel. Except that no smoke curled upward from her stack and there was not a sign of life about her, she looked as if she might have just set out on a voyage. From her mainmast a flag hung, wrapped about the spar ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... masts were nearly in line, and the shot that had narrowly missed the foremast, and passed through the foresail, had struck the mainmast and brought it, and its sail, overboard. The crew of the brig raised a general cheer. A minute before a French prison had stared them in the face, and now they were free. The helm was instantly put up, and the brig bore straight away from ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... sun, just 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, but it was not of fort or home that he mused as at ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... slat heavily against the masts with the heave from a long, quick swell that ran rapidly from the southward. The running gear was not new, and Trunnell was a careful mate, so the ship was down to her upper topsails on the fore and mizzen and a main t'gallant on mainmast, the courses fore and after being clewed up and ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... perch aloft, where it carefully dressed its feathers, and after thanking its entertainers with a few cheerful notes it extended its wings and launched out into space, no land being in sight. The broken mainmast of a ship, floating, with considerable top hamper attached, was passed within a cable's length, suggestive of a recent wreck, and inducing a thousand dreary surmises. At first it was announced as the sea serpent, but ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... 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 ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... sails blew away, she 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 it ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... risk on the perpendicular wall of the wreck, sending the mizzentopmast overside along in the general crash. The Francis Spaight righted, and it was well that she was lumber laden, else she would have sunk, for she was already water-logged. The mainmast, still fast by the shrouds, beat like a thunderous sledge-hammer against the ship's side, every stroke bringing groans from ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... It was to be "in the full tide of happiness" for Nelson to destroy five thousand five hundred and twenty-five of his fellow-creatures, and have his own scalp torn open by a piece of langridge shot. Hear him again at Copenhagen: "A shot through the mainmast knocked the splinters about; and he observed to one of his officers with a smile, 'It is warm work, and this may be the last to any of us at any moment'; and then, stopping short at the gangway, added, with emotion, 'But, mark you—I would not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... agreed to take the Algerine ambassador to Constantinople. But this was not all the high-minded Dey demanded. He insisted that when the "George Washington" sailed out of the harbor, she should sail, not as a United States vessel, but as a ship of Algiers, and that she should carry on the mainmast, where generally floated the stars and stripes, the Algerine flag, while he kindly consented that the flag of her own country might float from the foremast. It was as difficult to refuse this second demand as it was the first, and so the "George Washington" ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... instant the mainmast went and as it swung clear, the stays were hastily cut by the captain and Paul. The captain frantically motioned Betsy to grab one of the lines attached to the mast. The next moment a sea broke over her that carried the three of them, with two ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... to fling lines in the vain hope of saving some sailor who was being churned to death in that dreadful creaming of the sea below. Yes, and there were forms of men visible on board; two had climbed the mainmast, which crashed before they could clutch at the ropes that were being flung to them from land, crashed and carried them down shrieking into the surge. Mark found it hard to believe that last summer he had spent many sunlit hours dabbling in the sand for ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... sea, while I shrieked aloud and implored his mercy, but all in vain. Seeing the Prince struggling and drowning in the waves I cried out and screamed and buffetted my face and tare my hair and would fain have cast myself into the waters but I could not, for he held me fast and lashed me to the mainmast. Then, pursuing our course with favouring winds we soon arrived at a small port-village where he bought camels and boy-slaves and journeyed on towards Cairo; but when several stages of the road were left behind us, the Abyssinian who dwelt in ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Horatio, schooner (Eden's tender), arrived this afternoon with only her foremast standing, having lost her mainmast in a tornado. Mr. Craig has just opened his general store, which, with Captain Smith's, forms the second mercantile establishment in ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... flag at the mainmast," said Roger, but the match that he set up for a mast caught fire almost as soon as the candles were lighted in the miniature fleet. His flag fell overboard, ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... object was a portion of the mainmast head of the Lady Franklin, and entangled in the rigging were two corpses—a man and a woman. The arms of the man were clasped round the body of the woman, and her head lay on his breast. The Prison ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... or 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 tightly ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... mad confusion, and a frantic banging of canvas as the schooner came up beam to the wind, with her rent mainsail flogging itself to tatters. Its ponderous boom was broken, and the mainmast-head had gone, but it was not the first time the sealermen had grappled with somewhat similar difficulties, and Dampier kept his head. He had the boat to think of, and she was somewhere to windward, hidden in the sudden darkness and the turmoil of the quickly rising sea, but in the meanwhile ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss |
