"Ebb tide" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the Emperor the conversation which he had with you this morning. His Majesty will proceed on board your ship with the ebb tide to-morrow morning, between four ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... to pull him out by the seat of the trousers. The fat old thing had gone out in the dark to the end of the yacht's boat- boom, and was trying to worry in the dinghy with his toe, when plump he dropped into a six-knot ebb tide. Of course, if I hadn't happened along in a launch, he might have drowned, but, as for anything heroic on my part—why, the very notion is preposterous. The whole affair only lasted half a minute, and in five he was aboard his yacht and drinking hot Scotch in a plush dressing-gown. It was ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... "All I'm tryin' to do is keep her afore it. If this no'theast wind would hold, we'd be all right, but it's dyin' fast. And the tide must be at flood, if not startin' to go out. With no wind, and no anchor, and the kind of ebb tide there'll be pretty soon—well, if we don't drift out to sea we'll be lucky. . . . Pump! pump! you son of a roustabout. If I hear you stoppin' for a second I'll ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and the light was still burning. On my right hand was the outer telegraph building. When they see us they telegraph to another place, from which they telegraph all over San Francisco. When we were going in there was a strong ebb tide. We arrived at the wharf a little after five o'clock. The first thing which I did was to look for my father. ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... become charnel-houses. Two men only, besides Munck, had survived the winter. When the ice went out with a rush and a grinding, and the ebb tide left the flats bare, wolves came nightly, sniffing the air and prowling round the ships' exposed keels. 'As I have no more hope of life in this world,' wrote Jens Munck, 'herewith good-night to all the world and my soul to God.' His two ...
— 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
... sometimes for a minute or two it looked as if she went astern. Flame blew from the tug's funnel, lighting the black trail of smoke; steam roared at her escape-pipe, and the engines throbbed hard. The ebb tide, however, was beginning to run and helped her across the shoals. The leadsman got deeper water, the rollers got smooth, and presently the swell was long and regular and the spray cloud melted astern. In the morning, a faint dark line to starboard was all that indicated the African coast. Next day ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... the Cape. Here the coast is low and sandy, and is of shoal approach. A small clump of mangrove-trees on the beach was the first sign of vegetation that we had seen; and, from the absence of verdure hereabout, is a conspicuous object. The thermometer stood at 89 degrees. The ebb tide then commenced and drifted us out near our last night's anchoring ground, and the evening was spent, without success, in searching for our lost anchor. At sunset a fresh breeze set in from the South-West, and fearing a repetition of our loss, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... to 11 a.m., when it moderated; the tide being full at about noon. Got underweigh at 1 p.m., and stood to the south-west, under topsails, stemming a strong ebb tide to 3.30, when we came to anchor in five fathoms (sand and shells), about three miles from the western shore of the bay, Sloping Head bearing north by east five miles. The water of the bay is much discoloured, being of a deep reddish-brown. ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... one. A woman's favor comes in waves like the flowing of the sea; and a wise man, if he fails to catch one flood, will wait for another. Dic was unconsciously wise, for Rita's favor was at its ebb when she walked down to the river bank. Ebb tide was indicated by the fact that she sat as far as possible from him on the log. The first evidence of a returning flood-tide would be an unconscious movement on her part toward him. Should the movement come from him there might be ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... consternation among the British seamen. The troops were aroused, and, with the sailors, manned the wharves and shipping at Philadelphia, discharging their cannon and small-arms at everything they could see floating in the river during the ebb tide. ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... of brighter light swept across and across the water from occulting beacons set at long intervals among buoys. Above the steamer lay a large Norwegian barque waiting for her pilot to take her down on the ebb tide. Below The McMunn Brothers was an ocean-going tramp steamer. One of her crew sat on the forecastle playing the ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... condemned them, and I defended. Pushed by his arguments, at length I said, "for I went a-fishing myself sometimes with a boat on the Acushnet; yes, and barely escaped once being carried out to sea by the ebb tide," I said, "My fishing is not a reckless destruction of life; somebody must take fish, and bring them to us for food, and those I catch come to my table." "Now," said he, "that is as if you said to your butcher, You have to slay a certain number of cattle, calves, and sheep, and ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... lasted another ten minutes. During this time an opening had been discovered, and the ship was towed towards it, but so strong a current set through it that she was driven fully a quarter of a mile away from the reef. Aided by the boats, the ebb tide carried her nearly two miles away by noon. When the flood made, however, she was once more carried back towards the reef; but in the meantime the first lieutenant had discovered a passage, and a light breeze springing up, it was ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... are, moreover, composed of the most treacherous and bottomless quicksands. The whole coast is scarcely equaled in the world for danger and fearful appearance, particularly when a strong easterly wind meets the ebb tide. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... it overboard. Ebb tide'll carry it away. Heave it into the slip. Wait—maybe you'll have to hoist the hatches. 'Tisn't raining much now, anyway, and it will soon stop altogether. Might as well go aloft and make a good job of the hatches, hadn't ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... get off?' asked the captain. 'You will float off when the tide makes.' 'And then what will we do if there is no wind?' 'You will go on the cliffs, but there will be a capful of wind at ebb tide.' The captain had sent for his chart, and the fisherman pointed out where the brig stood. He said if a breeze did not come in time for her to make a slant southwards we were to take to the boats and row to the cove which he covered with his thumb. 'If you can get your anchor over the side, ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... endeavours to construct a canoe: our first essays were unsuccessful, but by Saturday night we had a bark one completed, which we hoped would answer our purpose; though I think if the natives saw it they would ridicule our rude attempts. This morning, the ebb tide answering, we commenced transporting our luggage, and in three hours every thing was safe over. A very serious misfortune however occurred in swimming the horses across: two of them were seized with the cramp near the middle ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... Its details will be read in the history which follows. Characteristic of either adversary was his method. The German with concentration of population, resources, artillery, soldiery, and organization, and the Russian part, glamorous, slow, yielding to the terrific blows, flowing back like an ebb tide, and taking his time, never risking a decision, his army never ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... their hands and put it to their mouths, they thought that they had never tasted anything so sweet. Then they went on board and sailed into a sound that was between the island and a point that went out northwards from the land, and sailed westward past the point. There was very shallow water and ebb tide, so that their ship lay dry; and there was a long way between their ship and the water. They were so desirous to get to the land that they would not wait till their ship floated, but ran to the land, to a place where a river comes out of a lake. As soon ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock
... ropes and the iron bar would keep the kegs on the sandy bottom and prevent them from disclosing their identity by floating. At low water the smugglers could have gone to get them up again, for they would not move far even with the ebb tide. Unfortunately, however, the Revenue Tide Surveyor at this port preceded the smugglers, and by creeping for the bar and tubs with grapnels succeeded ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... leg, had a black patch over the place where his right eye should have been, while his left arm was partially crippled; and his crew consisted of a mite of a boy whose activity and intelligence could scarcely make up for his want of size and strength. The ebb tide, too, was making strong out of Portsmouth Harbour, and a fresh breeze was blowing in, creating a tumbling, bubbling sea at the mouth; and vessels and boats of all sizes and rigs were dashing here and there, madly and without purpose ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... sturdy look Never left hers for long, whose shepherd's hook Seemed not a staff to prop him, whose bright eyes Burned steadily, as fire when the wind dies. Great in the girth was he, but not so tall By a full hand as many whom the wall Showed like gaunt channel-posts by an ebb tide Left stranded in a world of ooze. Beside His knees she kneeled, and to his wounded feet Applied her balms; but he, from his low seat Against the wall, leaned out and in her ear Whispered, but so that no one else could hear, "Other than my wounds are there ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... an important picture. Really, Kelly, it's great stuff—a still, turquoise-tinted pool among wet rocks; ebb tide; a corking little mermaid caught in a pool left by the receding waves—all tones and subtle values," ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... dazzling glare. A faint perfume from a quaint lilac-colored beach-flower, whose clustering heads dotted the sand like bits of blown spume, took the place of that smell of the sea which the odorless Pacific lacked. A few rocks, half a mile away, lifted themselves above the ebb tide at varying heights as they lay on the trough of the swell, were crested with foam by a striking surge, or cleanly erased in the full sweep of the sea. Beside, and partly upon one of the higher rocks, a singular ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... clear to Great Harbor for one, but he got back with all hands about seven o'clock. Everybody in town was at supper, an' didn't see us when we clumb aboard the Lass. When it was pitch-black we cast off the lines, an' she drifted out on the ebb tide, which just there runs easy a knot an' a half. Then we got up our headsails so as to get steerage-way on her, and bless my soul if the blocks made a creak! Might have been pullin' silk thread through a fur mitten, for ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... whom we left at the portage passed us on their way down the river, and seven others, who were descending in a canoe for the purpose of trading below, camped with us. We had made from the foot of the great shoot twenty-nine miles to-day. The ebb tide rose at our camp about nine inches; the flood must rise much higher. We saw great numbers of water-fowl, such as swan, geese, ducks of various kinds, gulls, plovers, and the white and gray brant, of which ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... river here about 21/2 miles wide. Seven Indians in a Canoe on their way down to trade with the nativs below, encamp with us, those we left at the portage passed us this evening and proceeded on down The ebb tide rose here about 9 Inches, the flood tide must rise here much higher- we made 29 miles to day from the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... twelve hours, an event altogether unlooked for, and which would have baffled the skill of the most experienced navigator; our chart, upon examination, also proving to be incorrect. Luckily it was ebb tide when she went on, and after getting out all the boats, and lightening the ship by throwing overboard shot and starting water, she was got off, after having been aground about eight ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... midnight and the ebb tide set in. The good wind was still blowing down the river. Two lanterns went aloft in the rigging of the Sutherland, and the signal for one of the great adventures of history was given. All the troops had gone into boats earlier ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... so many places in California, and if we are historically inclined we may inspect the old Spanish grants in the Surveyor-General's office. Those of us whose tastes are modern and literary may find our account in identifying some of the places in R.L. Stevenson's "Ebb Tide," and it will go hard with us if we do not also meet a few of his characters amid the cosmopolitan crowd in the streets or on the wharves. At night we may visit China without the trouble of a voyage, and perambulate a city of 25,000 Celestials ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... singular and ingenious. At low water, they inclose a large extent of the flat shore with stakes interwoven with boughs of trees, forming a kind of basket-work; which pens or corrales are covered by every flood and left dry by the ebb tide, at which time they generally find abundance of fish. They likewise employ as food a species of sea-weed, called luche, which they form into a kind of loaves or cakes which are greatly esteemed even by the wealthy inhabitants of Lima. Seals are more ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... should never carry a novel to Sydney; I should post it from here. In the second place, WEIR OF HERMISTON is as yet scarce begun. It's going to be excellent, no doubt; but it consists of about twenty pages. I have a tale, a shortish tale in length, but it has proved long to do, THE EBB TIDE, some part of which goes home this mail. It is by me and Mr. Osbourne, and is really a singular work. There are only four characters, and three of them are bandits - well, two of them are, and the third is their comrade and accomplice. It sounds cheering, doesn't ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... went very quickly. One day Jacky Hart died—drifted out with the ebb tide, holding Frances's hand. She had loved the patient, sweet-souled little creature and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... us it needed not a word. Our souls went out to one another in stark good faith; never before had I had anything but a guarded watchfulness for any fellow-man. Still I see him, upon that wild desolate beach of the ebb tide, I see him leaning against the shelly buttress of a groin, looking down at the poor drowned sailor whose body we presently found. For we found a newly drowned man who had just chanced to miss this great dawn in which we rejoiced. We found him lying ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... speaks in these matters, unless spoken to. Admiral Blue and your honour are quite enough to take care of the fleet in most circumstances, though there is some knowledge in the tops, as well as in the cabin. My ideas is, gentlemen, that, by casting to starboard on this ebb tide, we shall all have our heads off-shore, and we shall fetch into the offing as easily as a country wench turns in a jig. What we shall do with the fleet, when we gets out, will be shown in ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the anchor was lowered, but its chain barely ran because the bottom lay no more than a meter down, and this locality was one of the shallowest spots near the bank of shellfish. Instantly the skiff wheeled around under the ebb tide's outbound thrust. ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... they ran some risk of a visitation from the blood-sucking bats. The far-away volcanoes occasionally sent up sheets of flame, which in the distance were like summer lightning; the torrents of lava and crashes that had sounded so thunderous when near, were now like the murmur of the ocean's ebb tide, lulling the terrestrials to deeper sleep. The pale moons were at intervals momentarily obscured by the rushing clouds in the upper air, only to reappear soon afterwards as serene as before. All Nature seemed at rest. Shortly before dawn there was an unusually ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... England. The day passed quietly. No one was allowed ashore. The ship's gig went down to see some of the other ships of the White Star fleet and we got some of our belated mail. On Saturday we were to sail with the ebb tide. All the transports had come in and there was assembled in Gaspe Basin the greatest Armada that ever set sail for British shores. We were going in this great Armada to assist the Mother Country to maintain the Pax Britannicum. There were ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... a glorious evening. We were off Deal, slowly drifting past the town on the ebb tide; our progress made apparent only by the quiet, stealthy way in which the masts of the vessels lying at anchor in the roadstead successively approached, covered, and receded from some prominent object on shore, such as a church spire, a lofty building, a tall chimney, and what ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... hope boys respond now as they once did to the sharks and the pirates, the planters, and all the rollicking high spirits of that splendid book. Then there is Dana's "Two Years before the Mast." I should find room also for Stevenson's "Wrecker" and "Ebb Tide." Clark Russell deserves a whole shelf for himself, but anyhow you could not miss out "The Wreck of the Grosvenor." Marryat, of course, must be represented, and I should pick "Midshipman Easy" and "Peter Simple" as his samples. Then throw in one of Melville's Otaheite books—now far too completely ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... upon the brisk sea breeze and the strong ebb tide, which together kicked up a nasty sea, to bring me to grief. But I was on my mettle, and never in all my life did I sail a boat better than on that day. I was keyed up to concert pitch, my brain was ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... the danger. I did not hesitate—I loved Mr Turnbull, and my love and my feelings of resentment were equally potent. I seized the bight of the rope, twisted it round my arm, and plunged in after, recollecting it was ebb tide: fortunate for Mr Turnbull it was that he had accidentally put the question. I sank under the ice, and pushed down the stream, and in a few seconds felt myself grappled by him I sought, and at almost ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a mile apart, with no lights to indicate their presence, were drifting idly with the ebb tide. It was an oppressively hot night in mid-August. Scarcely a ripple disturbed the surface of the sea, but the intense darkness and the absence of stars told of the heavy clouds above. The barometer had been falling rapidly for some hours and all the conditions seemed to indicate ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... picket. Here she waited until the backward rush again slackened the chain, then she half drew the iron pin that held the last link. Half drew it! Had the girl been alone, she told herself, she would have given her to the ebb tide. ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... was tied up alongside the wharf, her bow upstream, and lay tugging at her mooring ropes in the swift run of the ebb tide. Merriman's first glance at her was one of disappointment. He had pictured a graceful craft of well-polished wood, with white deck planks, shining brasswork and cushioned seats. Instead he saw a square-built, clumsy-looking boat, painted, where the paint was not ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... duty of the fireman to give notice of this occurrence; but he seems not to have mentioned it to the captain. The vessel, which had evidently come fair into the channel, though there was no light on the coast to guide her, now drifted, with the ebb tide and north-west wind, towards the Dutchman's Bank, on the north point of which she struck, her bows sticking fast in the sand. Lieut. Atkinson immediately ordered the man at the helm to put the helm ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous |
