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More "Steersman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bank, either to help haul upon a line, or, in the case of the younger children and the dogs, simply to walk in order to relieve the craft of their weight and also for safety's sake, should the canoe overturn. The greatest danger is for the steersman to lose control and allow the canoe to get out of line with the current, as the least headway in a wrong direction is apt ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... getting through fast water is not to lose your nerve," said Mr. Waterman. "Next you must have confidence in your steersman and do what he tells you just as ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... excited voices break the silence on the shore. It won't do to hope too much, but surely all the boats are thickening to one spot.... No, it's nothing!... Yes, it is—it is something—one knows what—sighted abaft the Ellen Jane, whose steersman catches it with a boathook as the oars we on the beach saw suddenly drop back water—slowly, cautiously—and only wait for him to drag the light weight athwart the gunwale to row for the dear life towards the town. The ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... returned, and we observed that each of them carried between its talons stones, or rather rocks, of a monstrous size. When they came directly over my ship, they hovered, and one of them let fall a stone, but by the dexterity of the steersman it missed us, and falling into the sea, divided the water so that we could almost see the bottom. The other roe, to our misfortune, threw his messy burden so exactly upon the middle of the ship, as to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... in Macbeth was ruthlessly struck out as containing an obvious allusion to the steersman of St. Peter's bark. Finally, bored and bothered by the political and theological Dogberrys of the day, with their inane prejudices, their solemn stupidity, and their entire ignorance of the conditions necessary for the growth of sane and healthy art, Madame ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... were driving into blankness which had shut down with that smothering density which mariners call "a dungeon fog." Saturday Cove's entrance was a distant and a small target. In spite of steersman and mate, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... to bear, the thicket was cleared by discharges of canister and grape, and the fire of the enemy was silenced. No other casualties occurred on board of the steamer, but many of the crew narrowly escaped harm, particularly those who were near the wheel house. The sailing master and the steersman had their clothes pierced by bullets, and the sides and decks of the steamer were similarly marked in many places. The river, becoming still narrower and more crooked above Gainesville, it was found entirely impossible to force the Sachem higher ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... stepped onto the highest rock, bellowed loudly, and made wild motions with his arm. The flying-boat, which was only a few hundred yards distant, slightly altered its course, now heading toward them in a way that left no doubt that the steersman ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... watched in dismay, for it seemed to me that we could in no way take the town. As for Olaf, he said nought; and when we had come to anchor again he sat on the steersman's bench, looking at the bridge and saying no word to any of us. The Danes were crowding the bridge and jeering at us, ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... where they lay hauled out on the sand, he saw men and women, Kanakas, reclining languorously, like lotus-eaters, the women in white holokus; and against one such holoku he saw the dark head of the steersman of the canoe resting upon the woman's shoulder. Farther down, where the strip of sand widened at the entrance to the lagoon, he saw a man and woman walking side by side. As they drew near the light lanai, he saw the woman's hand go down to her ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... thus knew by personal test that he was entirely capable of assisting his son Allen in the trading expedition to New Orleans. For Abraham, on the other hand, it was an event which must have opened up wide vistas of future hope and ambition. Allen Gentry probably was nominal supercargo and steersman, but we may easily surmise that Lincoln, as the "bow oar," carried his full half of general responsibility. For this service the elder Gentry paid him eight dollars a month and his passage home on a steamboat. It was the future President's first eager look into ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... sunshine only that I saw Dhu Heartach; and it was in sunshine, or the yet lovelier summer afterglow, that the steamer would return to Earraid, ploughing an enchanted sea; the obedient lighters, relieved of their deck cargo, riding in her wake more quietly; and the steersman upon each, as she rose on the long swell, standing tall and dark ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... clearer than usual, a circumstance I did not expect on it's rise. at 11 A.M. the wind became so hard that we were compelled to ly by for several hours, one of the small canoes by the bad management of the steersman filled with water and had very nearly sunk; we unloaded her and dryed the baggage; at one we proceed on the wind having in some measure abated. the country we passed today on the North side of the river is one of the most beautifull plains we have yet seen, it rises gradually from the river bottom ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... pilot. No one who has not seen a rapid can realise the nerve this requires. Seats had been roughly put in for us to sit on, otherwise, as a rule, except for the oarsmen's bench and the barrels, these boats are absolutely empty. Our friend, the steersman, sat at the bow, and with a sort of oar, held in position by a rope of plaited straw fixed a little on one side, guided the fragile bark. First we had to go into a lock. Any one acquainted with a nice wide shallow Thames lock may think he knows ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... cable another night. About midnight I struggled on deck, to get a breath of fresh air before turning in. The night was fine and clear, but the sea around black as ink, with great foaming white rollers. The decks, a foot deep in snow, were deserted save by Z—— and the steersman, whose silhouettes stood out black and distinct against the starlit sky as they paced the rickety-looking little bridge flanked by red and green lights. The Enzelli lighthouse was no longer visible. ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... we are discovered," exclaimed the steersman of the foremost boat, with a brutal oath. "Spring to your oars, lads! We must gain a footing before the guard turns out or it's all up with us. Pull for ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... to load and reserve fire," said the captain; "and hand me a musket, Fred. Load again as fast as I fire." So saying, the captain took aim and fired at the steersman of the largest boat, which pulled towards the stern. ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... intangible shifting of relations in his surroundings incident to the mere passage of time in the few days of his obliteration, now felt, as a blind man feels the mountain in his approach, or as the steersman in a Newfoundland fog apprehends the nearing of the iceberg, some subtle alteration in the attitude toward him of the young woman by his side. Instantly he was on guard ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... say that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death, a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca, and placed in the ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... they left him tongue-tied. Yes, by George, she was a beauty! Her carriage was regal, and there was about her an air of competence, of authority. She was not disturbed by her surroundings—she laughed. What had she called the storm? A puff! She seemed, by George, like a sprite of the storm! Like the steersman yonder, she seemed to belong to this setting of laboring ship and tumultuous sea. Here she came toward him ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... gentlemen," he said, turning to the passengers, "I shall rely upon you to pick off the steersman of the other vessel, and to prevent another taking his place. She steers badly now, and the moment her helm is free, she'll run up into the wind. As she does so, I shall bear off, run across her bow, and rake her deck with ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... that he knew well enough. Coming back to here and now, he looked and saw breakers upon a long sand bar. The making tide was at half, and that and the changed wind carried us toward the lines of foam. The boy cried, "Steersman! Steersman!" Ruiz sat up, holding his head in his hands. "Such a roaring in my ears!" But "Breakers! Breakers!" cried the boy. ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... the steersman of his boat in the morning, and hanged him in the evening of the same day. Fifty thousand people stood around the columns of the national capitol, shouting themselves hoarse at the presidential inaugural, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... small schooner some little distance from them playing seesaw, as he closed his eyes to the heaving blue sea. Land was conspicuous by its absence, and with a groan he turned and looked about him—at the white scrubbed deck, the snowy canvas towering aloft on lazily creaking spars, and the steersman leaning against the wheel regarding the ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... bright golden again, and the air felt delicious; but I began to wish that we were at our journey's end, and pointing ahead I tried to learn from our steersman how much farther he was going ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... potatoes and beets. Some barges laden with wood were being pulled through the locks by men harnessed to a long tow rope, and a savage dog on one of these barges menaced me with dripping fangs and bloodshot eyes when I stopped to talk to the steersman, who sat on the tiller smoking a short, evil-smelling pipe, while his "vrouwe" was hanging out a heavy wash of vari-colored garments on a line from the staff on the bow to a sweep fastened upright ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... sails and oars. Aboard which boat she forthwith got, and being, like most of the women of the island, not altogether without nautical skill, she rowed some distance out to sea, and then hoisted sail, and cast away oars and tiller, and let the boat drift, deeming that a boat without lading or steersman would certainly be either capsized by the wind or dashed against some rock and broken in pieces, so that escape she could not, even if she would, but must perforce drown. And so, her head wrapped in a mantle, she ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... shaft of which the end of a cord of due length, coiled up with the utmost care in the middle of the boat, is firmly tied; the other end is fastened to the bottom of the boat. Thus prepared they row in profound silence, leaving the whole conduct of the enterprise to the harpooner and to the steersman, attentively following their directions. When the former judges himself to be near enough to the whale, that is, at the distance of about fifteen feet, he bids them stop; perhaps she has a calf, whose safety attracts all the attention of the dam, which is a favourable circumstance; ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip! The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white; From the sails the dew did drip— Till clomb above the eastern bar The horned Moon, with one bright star Within the ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... highest pace of the three-horse team, and the Boy's Town was out of sight. He could not sleep for excitement that night, and he came and spent the time talking on quite equal terms with the steersman, one of the canalers whom he had admired afar in earlier and simpler days. He found him a very amiable fellow, by no means haughty, who began to tell him funny stories, and who even let him take the helm for a while. The rudder-handle was of polished iron, very different ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... here the ship Endraght of Amsterdam; the first merchant, Gilles Mibais, of Luyck; Captain Dirk Hartog; of Amsterdam; the 27th ditto set sail for Bantam; undermerchant Jan Stoyn, upper steersman, Pieter Dockes, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... morning, Jack mounted the steersman's seat, and sent the Terror rolling to the place where the bandits ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... tell him what might happen. A sailing vessel, probably a fishing smack, was crossing the steamer's course. He sprang to the telegraph, and signaled "Slow" to the engine-room. Simultaneously he shouted to the steersman to starboard the helm, and the siren trumpeted a single raucous blast into the silence. With the rattle of the chains and steering-rods in the gear-boxes came a ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... him, encouraged by the hoarse objurgations of the mate, whose excitement was intense. After what seemed a terribly long chase, we found his speed slackening, and we redoubled our efforts. Now we were close upon him; now, in obedience to the steersman, the boat sheered out a bit, and we were abreast of his labouring flukes; now the mate hurls his quivering lance with such hearty good-will that every inch of its slender shaft disappears within the huge body. "Layoff! Off with her, Louey!" screamed the mate; and she gave a wide sheer ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... too valuable to be shot down for missing a man with a knife. Such a canoe-steersman as Rupe never was known before or since: he knew every rock in every rapid from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... false last-century Chart! Though the conning may be smart, and the steersman play his part, Palinurus-like, Whilst they trust to your vain vellum, which is almost sure to sell 'em, even DAVY JONES can tell 'em, they may sink or strike. Hooray, King Death, hooray! Who says we've had our ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... all our papers, instruments, medicine, and almost every article indispensible for the success of our enterprise. The canoe being under sail, a sudden squall of wind struck her obliquely, and turned her considerably. The man at the helm, who was unluckily the worst steersman of the party, became alarmed, and instead of putting her before the wind luffed her up into it. The wind was so high that it forced the brace of the squaresail out of the hand of the man who was attending it, and instantly upset the ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... at once, and Caesar took his post as steersman, while the three stalwart soldiers were leaping into the canoe for the purpose of fighting hand to hand the nine Indians opposed to them. As they shot out from the shore the savages on the bank delivered a fierce fire upon them, but fortunately ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... camp-followers took up the donkeys and tumbled them bodily aboard a small boat with a lateen sail, and we followed and got under way. The deck was closely packed with donkeys and men; the two sailors had to climb over and under and through the wedged mass to work the sails, and the steersman had to crowd four or five donkeys out of the way when he wished to swing his tiller and put his helm hard-down. But what were their troubles to us? We had nothing to do; nothing to do but enjoy the trip; nothing to do but shove the donkeys ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... captain, steersman, and ballaster of our vessel. We struck our bargain with him at once, and at once proceeded to make preparations. Chiefly we prepared by stripping ourselves bare of everything except "must-haves." A birch, besides three men, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... have slain the steersman. The axe goes first and Skallagrim follows after. Ha, ha! Ay, Swanhild, we'll mingle tears. Give me the cup. Why, what is this? Thou art afire, a glory glows about thee, and from thee floats a scent like the scent of the Iceland ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... that?" he asked, as a hissing, sharp-drawn voice seemed to whisper in his ear. The steersman smiled, and pointed with his foot to where a short heavy cross-bow quarrel stuck quivering in the boards. At the same instant the man stumbled forward upon his knees, and lay lifeless upon the deck, a blood-stained feather jutting out from his back. As Alleyne stooped to raise him, the air seemed ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... well-nigh miraculous skill of the steersman, came almost within sight of Ostend, when, not fifty paces from the shore, she was suddenly struck by a heavy sea and capsized. The stranger with the light about his head spoke to this little world of ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... within half pistol-shot, and her forward guns were beginning to bear. From his station on the quarter-deck Barney shouted to his steersman in stentorian tones,— ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... sweet sake : I loved—alas! our life is love : I met a traveller from an antique land : I mourn Adonis dead—loveliest Adonis : I pant for the music which is divine : I rode one evening with Count Maddalo : I sate beside a sage's bed : I sate beside the Steersman then, and gazing : I sing the glorious Power with azure eyes : I stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret : I stood within the City disinterred : I weep for Adonais—he is dead' : I went into the deserts of dim sleep : I would not be a king—enough : If gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains : If ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... his dinner. In his spare moments Frank, who wisely regarded it as the duty of every officer to acquaint himself with every part of the management of a vessel, had learned to handle the wheel, and he was an excellent steersman. He could make a landing or get a boat under way, as well as the most experienced pilot; and in the present instance he was fully capable of steering the boat, for as the water in the river was high, there was no danger of getting ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... forward a slight sea sometimes came over with a crash, but the vessel was in no trouble, and she looked as if she could hold her own in a much worse breeze. I believe that only poets and landsmen are fond of bad weather; and the steersman occasionally threw a demure, quizzical glance at a young girl who was hanging on by one hand to the companion hatch. The wind had heightened her colour, and the chance gleams of the moon showed the girl's face as a flash of warm brightness in the chill ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... Indian canoes watching to pounce upon the immigrant boats coming down the Ohio. Whenever he saw the entrance of a tributary he always had the boat steered in toward the opposite shore, while all except the steersman sat with their rifles across their knees until the ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... paddles. Two enormous waves passed, leaving us undamaged; but a third approached, huge and threatening. Should we get to the shore before it? Would it rise upright and capsize us, or would it break on us and swamp us? Neither. It did reach us, indeed, but the old steersman had calculated well; it lifted us up unharmed and carried us on to the beach, where a hundred negroes laid hold of the canoe and dragged it high and dry. I was seized myself before I had time to collect my ideas, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... boat off from the pier; whilst the others took the oars, which were muffled, and rowed with all precaution till they attained the middle of the river; they then ceased their efforts, lay upon their oars, and trusted to the steersman for keeping ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... man dies with unpared nails, he supplies a large amount of materials for the building of this ship, which both gods and men wish may be finished as late as possible. But in this flood Naglfar gets afloat. The giant Hrym is its steersman. ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... not have paddled herself across, two men were taking her over; and for the steersman she had Jaffir. Though he had assented to Jorgenson's plan Jaffir was anxious to accompany the ring as near as possible to its destination. Nothing but dire necessity had induced him to part with the talisman. Crouching in the stern and flourishing his paddle from side to side he glared at the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... mile," said the designer to the steersman; and he pulled out his watch with exactly the same look of calm interest he showed when presiding over the trial ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... received the suggestion with approval. Usually—for the craft, though, sturdy, was a small one—he was his own steersman and engineer. Now, he could enjoy the luxury of a crew, and the driver, who was a fairly good mechanic, was quite competent to handle the ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... afoul of forty pirate ships under the coast of Seeland. He tried to steal past; forty against one were heavy odds. But it was moonlight and he was discovered. The pirates lay across his course and cut him off. Esbern made ready for a fight and steered straight into the middle of them. The steersman complained that he had no armor, and he gave him his own. He beat his pursuers off again and again, but the wind slackened and they were closing in once more, swearing by their heathen gods that they would have him dead or alive, for a Danish prisoner ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... afternoon; none of the boys felt any touches of seasickness now, and many of them were walking up and down the deck, some taking their comfort under awnings spread aft near the cabin companion, and some being on the bridge watching the steersman or looking out to sea in search of sails or noting the flight of the gulls and other seabirds or studying the movements of the dolphins playing around the bow, there being many of ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... along the deep, Like a mirror sleeps the ocean, And the anxious steersman sees Round him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... the order to the steersman. The ship's bows swung around, and the little steamer was soon scuttling upcoast towards the headland, along the outer line of reefs, at a speed of ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... mainsail gave way, the head of the vessel fell to leeward; next moment she went crashing into the Lively Poll, and cut her down to the water's edge. The ironclad seemed to rebound and tremble for a moment, and then passed on. The steersman at once threw her up into the wind with the intention of rendering assistance, but in another minute the Lively Poll had sunk and disappeared for ever, carrying Peter Jay ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... to all of us to be out thus in the freedom of the night and the sea—not least to the great noble-headed hound sitting up on his haunches, keen and watchful by the steersman's side. What a strange waste of a life so short to be sleeping there on the land, when one might be out and away on ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... flat country with a range of more than a league of water. As soon as everything was snug on board, the boat was lowered, and we pulled ashore, our new officer, who had been several times in the port before, taking the place of steersman. As we drew in, we found the tide low, and the rocks and stones, covered with kelp and sea-weed, lying bare for the distance of nearly an eighth of a mile. Picking our way barefooted over these, we came to what is called the landing-place, at high-water mark. The soil was as it appeared ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... came from Iceland belonging to Icelanders, and loaded with skins and peltry. They sailed to Hardanger, where they heard the greatest number of people assembled; but when the folks came to deal with them, nobody would buy their skins. Then the steersman went to King Harald, whom he had been acquainted with before, and complained of his ill luck. The king promised to visit him, and did so. King Harald was very condescending, and full of fun. He came ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... choking dusk of the noisome mine, The northern blast o'er the beating brine, With dogged valour they coolly brave; So on rattling rail, or on wind-scourged wave, At engine lever, at furnace front, Or steersman's wheel, they must bear the brunt Of lonely vigil or lengthened strain. Man is in charge of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... upon a plank, and grasping handles of rope, while a sailor swam behind. Here, too, Mrs. Hasty was the first to venture, under the guard of Davis. Once and again, during their passage, the plank was rolled wholly over, and once and again was righted, with its bearer, by the dauntless steersman; and when, at length, tossed by the surf upon the sands, the half-drowned woman still holding, as in a death-struggle, to the ropes, was about to be swept back by the undertow, he caught her in his arms, and, with the assistance of a bystander, placed her high ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Addison sailed from Marseilles to Genoa in a tartane in December 1699: a storm arose, and the patron alarmed the passengers by confessing his sins (and such sins!) loudly to a Capuchin friar who happened to be aboard. Smollett finally decided on a gondola, with four rowers and a steersman, for which he had to pay nine sequins (4 1/2 louis). After adventures off Monaco, San Remo, Noli, and elsewhere, the party are glad to make the famous phones on the Torre della Lanterna, of which banker Rogers sings in his ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... question concerning Menelaus, he left Troy in my company, as I told thee, and we sailed together as far as Sunium. There Menelaus lost his steersman, who was visited by Apollo with sudden death, as he sat by the helm; so he remained there to bury his comrade. But his misfortunes were not yet over; for when he reached the steep headland at Malea a violent storm arose, and parted his fleet. Some of his ships ran into Crete for shelter, ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... overturned, so that the father lost everything, and was able to save only the clothes on his back. Thus that boat, which withstood so many buffetings of the sea without any harm, happened to overturn four brazas from shore, through the carelessness of its steersman. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... forecastle, the sailors flung it not rudely down, as by day, .. but with some cautiousness dropt it to its place, for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, griping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considerating touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his wearied mates, seeking ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the lights of the little fishing hamlet of Lytham were passed, and they were fast entering upon the open sea. The stranger came out of the cabin, stationing himself by the steersman. They were evidently on the look-out for signals. It was not yet daybreak, and the wind was from the north, a bitter and a biting air, that made the jailer's teeth to chatter as he raised himself up to examine their course ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... arisen, and everything could be as plainly distinguished as during the day. A thin mist lay on the river, giving the few craft moving about in it a ghostly look. As they approached London Bridge, the thief-taker whispered Van Galgebrok, who acted as steersman, to make for a particular arch—near the Surrey shore. The skipper obeyed, and in another moment, they swept through the narrow lock. While the watermen were contending with the eddies occasioned by the fall below the bridge, Jonathan observed a perceptible shudder ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... know, my lads," said the old man, "a scow goes no faster than the river runs. Here's the great oar—twenty feet it is in length—made out of a young tree. The steersman uses that to straighten her up betimes. But there's nothing to make the boat run saving the current, do ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... John stood by the steersman and conned the ship. He knew the passage like the palm of his hand, and though the man in the chains got everywhere more water than was down in the chart, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... red carpet and all. Only the blare of the band followed them, and with the persistence of sound over water, followed them for some time. The Crown Prince put down the bouquet, and proceeded to stand near the steersman. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... so that if one of the crew had slipped his foot off the stretcher, it must have gone through the bottom. There was a standing order that no man was to go into it with shoes on. She was to pull six oars, and her crew were the captains of the tops, the primest seamen in the ship, and the steersman no less a character ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... afternoon have I rowed joyously with these same maidens beneath these steep and garlanded shores; many a time have they pulled the heavy four-oar, with me as coxswain at the helm,—the said patient steersman being oft-times insulted by classical allusions from rival boats, satirically comparing him to an indolent Venus drawn by doves, while the oarswomen in turn were likened to Minerva with her feet upon a tortoise. Many were the disasters in the earlier days of feminine training;—first ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... answered the steersman of the Black Hawk, who was dividing his attention between managing the craft and firing ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... extending five feet above the gunwale of the ship. The cabin had four windows on each side, a companionway fore and aft, and a sort of look-out or conning tower forward, which, the professor explained, was the place for the steersman. ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... boats of an amazing length, forty feet and upwards, which, manned with eight oars, move with great celerity. Every Saturday evening the scholars are permitted to assume fancy dresses; but the practice is now principally confined to the steersman; the rest simply adopting sailors' costume, except on the fourth of June, or election Saturday, when there is always a grand gala, a band of music, and fireworks, on the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the viking saw a goodly vessel making gallant headway. As she drew near the land with streamer flying and broad sails flapping in the wind, the viking saw that there was no soul on board of her; and yet, without steersman to guide her, the vessel avoided the shoals and held her way straight to the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... the darkling day. If the wind in our eyes blow blood for spray, Be the spirit that breathes in us life more strong, Though the prow reel round and the helm point wrong, And sharp reefs whiten the shoreward way. 1290 For the steersman time sits hidden astern, [Ant. 1. With dark hand plying the rudder of doom, And the surf-smoke under it flies like fume As the blast shears off and the oar-blades churn The foam of our lives that to death return, Blown back as they break to the gulfing gloom. What cloud upon heaven ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman— Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even! Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... launched, not without great difficulty, in the face of such a sea. The men stoutly took their oars, casting a look forward at the rocks, then at the quay, and on the face of their young steersman. Little they guessed the intense emotion that swelled in his breast as he took the helm, to save life or to lose it; enjoying the enterprise, yet with the thought that his lot might be early death; glad it was right thus ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flies with the wind astern, And through the boding twilight are blown the shrilling tern. The light is on the headland, the harbor gate is wide; But rolling in with ruin the fog is on the tide. Fate like a muffled steersman sails with that Norland gloom; The Snowflake in the offing is neck and neck with doom. Ha, ha, my saucy cruiser, crowd up your helm and run! There'll be a merrymaking to-morrow in the sun. A cloud of straining ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... affected Jewish travellers. Synesius uses a sarcastic tone, which must not be taken as seriously unfriendly. "His voyage homeward," says Mr. Glover, "was adventurous." It is a pity that space cannot be found for a full citation of Synesius's enthralling narrative. His Jewish steersman is an entertaining character. There were twelve members in the crew, the steersman making the thirteenth. More than half, including the steersman, were Jews. "It was," says Synesius, "the day which the Jews call the Preparation [Friday], and they reckon the night to the next day, on which they ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... serviceable in hunting, gathering fuel, etc. In the "forecastle"—the bows of the large canoes which projected beyond our cabin—sat three Indians to paddle. The fourth, who was the governor of Santa Rosa, we honored with the post of steersman; and he was always to be seen on the poop behind the kitchen, standing bolt upright, on the alert and on the lookout. On approaching any human habitation, the Indians blew horns to indicate that they came as friends. These horns ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... blacker outlines of the craft and its occupants as it sped forth from the gloom of the forest into the starlit area of the tiny lake. The great canoe was low in the water; for heaped in the centre of it was what was evidently a pile of freight, with two men in front and two behind. The steersman swung the prow around and on they went up the Wolverine without a pause in the sweep of the paddles or the swing ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the navigator, and the standard compass, owing to its remoteness from iron in this position, is placed on the top of the ice-house. The steersman, however, steers by a binnacle compass placed aft in front of his wheel. But these two compasses for various reasons do not read alike at a given moment, while the standard is the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... protested Colfax, born a Sims but living it down and feeling that never more than at this minute, when rudely the steersman's helm had been snatched from his grasp, was there greater need that he should be a Colfax through and through——"but, Mr. Lobel, it was my idea that up to this point anyway the action should be played with restraint to sort of ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... soon launched in safety, but the Paul Pry, Mr. Walker's boat, was not so fortunate; the water in the bay deepened rapidly from the steepness of the bank, and the steersman, who was keeping her bow on whilst the crew were launching, got frightened from the depth of water and the violence of the surf, and let go his hold; when the next surf threw the boat broadside on to the sea and, there being nearly half a ton weight of stores ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... them, for the steersman at once began to slew her round, and then he too went down as a bullet from Tematau took him fair and square in the chest, and we saw the blood pouring from him as he fell across the gunwale. In another ten seconds they were paddling away from us, leaving ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... armament exactly when it was too late. Ere then Napoleon had encountered almost an equal hazard. A French ship of war had crossed his path; but the Emperor made all his soldiery lie flat on the decks, and the steersman of the Inconstant, who happened to be well acquainted with the commanding officer, had received and answered the usual challenge without exciting any suspicion. Thus narrowly escaped the flotilla which ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... there was a row there in January. One of our native boats laden with rice was coming up the river, on our side of the channel, when an armed Burmese boat came across and demanded duty. Of course, our fellows said they were in their own waters, whereupon the Burmese fired upon them and killed the steersman. There were reports, then, that bodies of Burmese troops were moving about on their side of the river, and that it was feared they would cross over and burn some of our villages. Accordingly, our guard at the mouth of the ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... and exulting "Ugh!" was now heaved from the chest of the Indian, who stood calmly on the spot on which he had first rested, while Fuller prepared a coil of rope to throw to the active steersman. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... men would only let the Bible "coach them," they would be saved from many a blunder and defeat. It is important to have, as steersman, one who knows the currents, and just when to alter the course. The youngster who steers the University boat has been up and down the river many a time, till he has learned everything he needs to know. Let me ask you, "Who steers?" If SELF-WILL ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... multitude into the rapid stream, and thus perished. On the river, to the right and left, is seen a Portuguese coasting vessel, called Hyate; in the centre is a wine-boat of the Douro, with a raised platform for the steersman. The foreground of the view is the shore of Villa Nova, adjoining the quay. The chief article of export is wine;[5] and here is the grand depot for this commodity, which is stowed in long, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... whence I augur ill. But though their horses have the speed of thine, In skill not one of them surpasses thee. Then thou, dear boy, exert thine ev'ry art, That so thou mayst not fail to gain a prize. By skill, far more than strength, the woodman fells The sturdy oak; by skill the steersman guides His flying ship across the dark-blue sea, Though shatter'd by the blast; 'twixt charioteer And charioteer 'tis skill that draws the line. One, vainly trusting to his coursers' speed, Drives reckless here and there; o'er all the course, His horses, unrestrain'd, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... I were on our way home from Troy, on good terms with one another. When we got to Sunium, which is the point of Athens, Apollo with his painless shafts killed Phrontis the steersman of Menelaus' ship (and never man knew better how to handle a vessel in rough weather) so that he died then and there with the helm in his hand, and Menelaus, though very anxious to press forward, had to wait in order to bury his comrade and give him his due funeral ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... dreams, I should be wise to stand aside. I felt that, after all, Miss Fraenkel's crystal-clear bromidity would be a delightful change after so much intense living and introspection. For that evening, after dinner, as I listened to the music of the Steersman's Song from the Flying Dutchman, it seemed only too likely that even after all these years, so deathless is passion in some hearts, the skilled hand of Frank Carville might set a woman's soul vibrating with some ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... were tense before the wind, and up aloft the little ship seemed carrying every sail she had. The sky was clear, the sun midway down the western sky; long waves, capped by the breeze with froth, were running with us. We went past the steersman to the taffrail, and saw the water come foaming under the stern and the bubbles go dancing and vanishing in her wake. I turned and surveyed the unsavoury length of ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... numerous rapids, and here and there actual falls. The boat is usually propelled up a rapid by poling. Each member of the crew has beside him a stout pole some eight or nine feet long; and when the boat approaches a rapid, the crew at a shout from the captain, usually the steersman, spring to their feet, dropping their paddles and seizing their poles. Thrusting these against the stony bottom in perfect unison, the crew swings the boat up through the rushing water with a very pleasant motion. If the current proves too ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... became aware of a sudden swerve in the course of the submarine. The helmsman had, doubtless, noted the "water-mark," as Tom termed it, and as an automobilist on land might swing at the cross-roads, the steersman was changing ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... put on the appearance of approaching storm; Lord Nelville counselled the sailors, restored confidence to the passengers, and when he himself assisted in working the ship, when he took for a moment the place of the steersman, there was in all he did, a skill and a power which could not be considered as merely the effect of the agility of the body,—there was soul in ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... the attention of all the natives. They called out Eige-ea Eige, and hastened to give place to the new-comers. The canoe, rowed by ten men, large and elegantly embellished with muscle-shells, soon approached us. The heads of the rowers and of the steersman were decorated with green boughs, probably ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... us go forward. These two doors form the entrance to the pilot-house; please, step in. Here is the steering wheel, and by means of these brass tubes the steersman communicates with the engineer. Look up to the ceiling. It is decorated with multitudinous charts and maps. Before we leave this room do not forget to glance at the mariner's compass in ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... will humbly suggest Orpheus singing at the stem, a following wind, a great bellying sail behind, and all around wet air and splashing grey sea, the stem ploughing it up silver and white and green, and away aft under the bend of the sail there would be Jason and the steersman, possibly Medea, with the curl out of her hair, and perhaps just a touch of the golden fleece, just a fleck of pale yellow to enliven the minor tints! Round the bows there would be men listening ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... soon in the palace formerly Libo's and now the property of Rufius. He, on succeeding to his uncle's estate, at once rewarded with a huge donation the steersman of the boat in which we had been saved, saying that the other steersmen did their best, but that, if the others had been as dexterous as he, his aunt and uncle would not have perished by so deplorable and ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... thy soul a river flowing Swiftly, over golden sands, With the singing of the steersman ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... rose and was borne on the long swell so fast and so fearfully, that it appeared as if nothing could save it from dashing on the ledges of projecting rock; and then, before it reached them, it sank out of sight, to be lifted up and borne along as before. There were four rowers, a steersman, and two others, muffled in cloaks. Annie watched them till the boat disappeared in the windings of the harbour; and she was out on the hill-side, in the cold February wind, when she saw the whole party ascending from the shore, and ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... mate, speaking to him briefly and rapidly, and the sullen face of the Spaniard became alive. An order to the steersman and the course of the schooner was shifted more toward the west. It was evident to Robert that they were not running away from whatever it was out there. The slaver for the first time in a long while took ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he knew what a good steersman Dane was. He then took his post beside Giles and Steel, who were admitted on to the bridge, and thence directed the ship. Then The Firefly made a bee-line for ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... standing. Even this, however, was more than enough, for we did not dare to hoist a rag of sail on it. For five days the tempest raged in all its fury. Everything was swept off the decks except one small boat. The steersman was lashed to the wheel, lest he should be washed away, and we all gave ourselves up for lost. The captain said that he had no idea where we were, as we had been blown far out of our course; and we feared much that we might get among ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... nothing in the moon noteworthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), deg. deg.160 She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman,— Blank to Zoroaster deg. on his terrace, deg.163 Blind to Galileo deg. on his turret. deg.164 Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats deg.—him, even! deg.165 Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better! Proves ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... received this information with great joy. They descended the mountain, came to the flat land, and at last, after a wearisome journey, during which they had seen the sun rise and set seven times, they arrived at the sea-coast. A ship lay ready at anchor, and when they inquired its destination, the steersman answered, "We are going to Selandia to fetch a cargo of cinnamon." To Haschem's question where they came from, and what this land where they were was called, he received for answer, "that the ship belonged to a merchant of Balsora, and that it had been cast on these unknown ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... his head away towards the sea, with tears of rage in his eyes—and saw the steersman swimming ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... effort to that end was made by the occupants. A large canoe, made from the straight trunk of a mahogany tree, is described as having been five feet in width and seventy-five feet long. This craft was propelled by twenty-five oarsmen on each side, a steersman in the stern, and a lookout at the prow. This was a cacique's barge, in which he made visits of state along shore and up ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... clergyman! No, no, Mr. Coverdale; if I choose a counsellor, in the present aspect of my affairs, it must be either an angel or a madman; and I rather apprehend that the latter would be likeliest of the two to speak the fitting word. It needs a wild steersman when we voyage through chaos! The anchor ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Joe, as they moved along. 'You'll have to prove that you can read and write, which is more than they would ask of you if you were going into the Cabinet; but we live in an intellectual age, and we test all the cabin-boys, and it is only the steersman we ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... priest always remains by the steersman, to ward off the spells of the sea demons." Ladro paused, pointing overside. "See," he said in a pleased tone, "here is an envoy ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... time, and can steer up or down the rapids as well as any pilot. No one who has not seen a rapid can realise the nerve this requires. Seats had been roughly put in for us to sit on, otherwise, as a rule, except for the oarsmen's bench and the barrels, these boats are absolutely empty. Our friend, the steersman, sat at the bow, and with a sort of oar, held in position by a rope of plaited straw fixed a little on one side, guided the fragile bark. First we had to go into a lock. Any one acquainted with a nice wide shallow Thames lock may think he knows all about such matters; ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... our own," was the answer of the steersman, "and I think we're catching up to the yellow car again. If we pass that I'm not so sure but what we can come in a close second ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... the thrower's bag. Or, rather, it is a harpoon hurled at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a coil of cord in the boat, and if the harpoon is not good, or not well thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain, or to ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... he, "Rupe was too valuable to be shot down for missing a man with a knife. Such a canoe-steersman as Rupe never was known before or since: he knew every rock in every rapid from the Ottawa to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in the Indian tongue was shouted at them that they must not attempt to land. A shot was fired over their heads to emphasise the fact that the savages were in earnest, and with no alternative, and taken wholly by surprise, Shad at the steersman's paddle astern, swung the canoe out into the stream, ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... himself, he went to Denmark and to Flanders, buying and selling, till he owned (in what port we are not told, but probably in Lynn or Wisbeach) half one merchant ship and the quarter of another. A crafty steersman he was, a wise weather-prophet, a shipman stout in body and in heart, probably such a one as Chaucer tells us ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... severe light of the moon sharpened his strong features into startling expression, as he regarded me for a second with mingled astonishment and vexation. He did not seem to notice my offered hand; but, saying something in a low cold tone about the unexpected pleasure, turned to the steersman, and demanded fiercely why he had not abided by his agreement? The sailor, quailing before the authoritative tone and aspect of his really noble-looking questioner, began an exculpatory account of my having been brought thither by ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... broken limb. They then collected five other seamen, by whose assistance they succeeded at length in getting the boat afloat; for it had grounded with the falling tide. Nisbet took one of the oars and ordered the steersman to go close under the guns of the battery, that they might be safe from its tremendous fire. Hearing his voice, Nelson roused himself, and desired to be lifted up in the boat that he might look about him. Nisbet raised him up; but nothing could ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the head pilot, stood with his hand on the spokes of the wheel, gazing with the eyes of a night-bird on the outlines of shore and hill. Mann Turpin, his steersman, stood at the right of the wheel. Jenkins knocked the ashes from his cigar, and the glow from the deep red circle of tobacco fire momentarily radiated the gloom of the pilot-house. The night was serene and ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... of the most distinguished Grecian heroes came to Jason's aid, while Argus, the son of Phrixus, under the guidance of Athena, built the ship, inserting in the prow, for prophetic advice and furtherance, a piece of the famous talking oak of Dodona. Tiphys was the steersman, and Orpheus joined the crew to enliven the weariness of their sea-life with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and reserve fire," said the captain; "and hand me a musket, Fred. Load again as fast as I fire." So saying, the captain took aim and fired at the steersman of the largest boat, which pulled towards the ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... make; and the rapidity with which this little chaloupe, glittering with gilding and hung with streamers, made its way along the sparkling stream, struck the observers as something extraordinary. It flew by every thing on the river, yet no one was visible on board. It had no sail up, no steersman, no rower; yet it plunged and rushed along with the swiftness of a bird. The Vicentine populace are behind none of their brethren in superstition, and at the sight of the flying chaloupe, the groups came running from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... Jimmy of a buckwheat cake. It made him think instead of a slowly turning wheel in the pilot house of a rotting old riverboat, a big, ghostly wheel manned by a steersman a century dead, his eye sockets filled with ...
— The Mississippi Saucer • Frank Belknap Long
... we observed that each of them carried between its talons rocks of a monstrous size. When they came directly over my ship, they hovered, and one of them let fall a stone, but by the dexterity of the steersman it missed us. The other roc, to our misfortune, threw his burden so exactly upon the middle of the ship, as to split it into a thousand pieces. The mariners and passengers were all crushed to death, or sank. I myself was of the number of the latter; but as I came up again, ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... laden with wood were being pulled through the locks by men harnessed to a long tow rope, and a savage dog on one of these barges menaced me with dripping fangs and bloodshot eyes when I stopped to talk to the steersman, who sat on the tiller smoking a short, evil-smelling pipe, while his "vrouwe" was hanging out a heavy wash of vari-colored garments on a line from the staff on the bow to a sweep fastened ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... that intercept the stream. The Indians pass from rock to rock by leaping, wading, or swimming, and, by means of a hawser, haul the boat through the rushing water from one resting-point to another, the steersman keeping his seat, and—sometimes lashed to it—striving with his large paddle to guide in some degree her course. The roar of the water dashing and foaming against the surrounding rocks renders this operation as exciting ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death, a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca, and placed in the mortuary ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... limbs. Such gods as those were worshipped by the Sidonians. She was now returning from Albion, an isle beyond the pillars of Heracles and the gates of the great sea, where much store of tin is found; and she had rich merchandise on board. On the half-deck beside the steersman was the captain, a thin, keen-eyed sailor, who looked shoreward and saw the sun blaze on the golden armour of the Wanderer. They were so far off that he could not see clearly what it was that glittered yellow, but all that glittered yellow ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... everything, and was able to save only the clothes on his back. Thus that boat, which withstood so many buffetings of the sea without any harm, happened to overturn four brazas from shore, through the carelessness of its steersman. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... undisturbed, save by the gurgling noise of the paddles, as guided by the point of the spear; the canoe whirls on its axis with an almost dizzing velocity, or the sudden dash of the spear, followed by the struggles of the transfixed fish, or perhaps the characteristic "Eh," from the Indian steersman. In this manner, sometimes fifty or sixty fish of three or four pounds are speared in the course of a night, consisting of black bass, white fish, and sometimes a noble maskimongi. A little practice soon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... make up your mind at once," said the widow Robson, "or we shall none go, I fancy, as Arthur Blackbourne is the steersman of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Colfax, born a Sims but living it down and feeling that never more than at this minute, when rudely the steersman's helm had been snatched from his grasp, was there greater need that he should be a Colfax through and through——"but, Mr. Lobel, it was my idea that up to this point anyway the action should be played with restraint to sort of prepare ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... for Captain Laramore's ship which was going to turn pirate. Well, they got to the boats, and one lot got off safe to the ship which hoisted the black flag, and sailed away to the Indies, and is sailing there, murdering and ruining, to this day, I reckon. But the other boat was over full, and the steersman was drunken, and she capsized before she got to the middle of the channel. Some were drowned, and those that got ashore we hung next morning. But Trail was in the ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... swirl, Pele-honua-mea o'ermounts them; The god rides the waves, sails about the island; The host of little gods ride the billows; 15 Malau takes his seat; One bales out the bilge of the craft. Who shall sit astern, be steersman, O, princes? Pele of the yellow earth. The splash of the paddles dashes ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... rudder, the newcomer silently brought the vessel round, steering it towards the place where the waves dashed highest, and in an incredibly short space of time they came to an island, where the steersman motioned them to disembark. In awestruck silence the twelve men obeyed; and their surprise was further excited when they saw the stranger fling his battle-axe, and a limpid spring gush forth from the spot on the greensward where it fell. Imitating the stranger, all drank of this water without ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... Weldon," continued Captain Hull. "He is at the helm, his eye fixed on the point of the foresail. No distraction on the part of this young novice, as well as no lurch to the ship. Dick Sand has already the confidence of an old steersman. A good beginning for a seaman. Our craft, Mrs. Weldon, is one of those in which it is necessary to begin very young. He who has not been a cabin-boy will never arrive at being a perfect seaman, at least in the merchant marine. Everything must be learned, and, consequently, everything ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... put me in that boat with those men because it was the lightest boat, and because Sadler, Craney, and Little Irish were powerful good rowers, and Abe he had this that was odd about him for a steersman, for though he was always a bit wandering in his mind, yet he could tell land by the smell. Put him within twenty miles of land at sea, no matter how small an island, and he'd smell the direction of it, and steer for it ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... our guide, the captain, steersman, and ballaster of our vessel. We struck our bargain with him at once, and at once proceeded to make preparations. Chiefly we prepared by stripping ourselves bare of everything except "must-haves." A birch, besides three men, will carry only the simplest baggage of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Caesar volunteered at once, and Caesar took his post as steersman, while the three stalwart soldiers were leaping into the canoe for the purpose of fighting hand to hand the nine Indians opposed to them. As they shot out from the shore the savages on the bank delivered a fierce fire upon them, but fortunately without effect. The savages ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... borrow this boat," said Murgh. "As from my study of the map I know these water-paths, I will be steersman and that tongue-tied lad shall row and tell me if I go wrong. First I will take you to the house where I think you said you lodged, and thence to go seek friends of my own in this city who will show ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... very high; it skimmed a few hundred feet above the banked darknesses of cumulus that hid the world, ready to plunge at once into their wet obscurities should some hostile flier range into vision. The tense young steersman divided his attention between the guiding stars above and the level, tumbled surfaces of the vapour strata that hid the world below. Over great spaces those banks lay as even as a frozen lava-flow and almost as still, and then ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... as could sit upon the deck, were passed over, in the largest of our three boats, at a time. The boats were towed backwards and forwards by Indian swimmers—one at the bow, and one at the stern as steersman, and two on each side as propellers. The poor fellows, when they came out of the cold water, trembled as if attacked with an ague. We encamped near the house of Mr. Livermore (previously described), where, after considerable ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... bobsleds, each steersman doing his best to guide his sled where running might be ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... enough for them, for the steersman at once began to slew her round, and then he too went down as a bullet from Tematau took him fair and square in the chest, and we saw the blood pouring from him as he fell across the gunwale. In another ten seconds they were ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... cried Andy, and, reaching up, he fairly pulled the steersman from his seat. The chap came down in a rush, nearly upsetting Andy, who, however, managed to yank the ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... flooded gutters. Here were rivers, lakes, and oceans for navigation; easy pilotage, for the steersman had but to wade beside his craft and guide it with a twig. Jane's timely boat was one of the first ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... although smoke was oozing out by the binnacle, it would be a good while before this part could be ablaze. There was no one by the wheel. The perfect calm that had continued since near morning rendered a steersman superfluous, and the wheel stood idle and neglected. The compass was gone. It was it I had observed in the bottom of ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... Club and Boat Racing is the popular sport of crew rowing or sculling, where each college appoints a crew of eight strong scull pullers or oarsmen and one small coxswain or steersman to pilot a long narrow boat called a skiff or shell. The coxswain calls the strokes and is generally the coach and commander of the crew. Unlike in a canoe, the pullers face backwards, and the one nearest the coxswain is called the "stroke oar", because all the other oars watch him and match his ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... to the yellow sands of Pagasai. And first came Heracles the mighty, with his lion's skin and club, and behind him Hylas his young squire, who bore his arrows and his bow; and Tiphys, the skilful steersman; and Butes, the fairest of all men; and Castor and Polydeuces the twins, the sons of the magic swan; and Caineus, the strongest of mortals, whom the Centaurs tried in vain to kill, and overwhelmed him with trunks of pine trees, but even ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... far from the Goodwin buoy, with her sails hanging idly on the yards. Bill Towler stands at the helm with all the aspect and importance of a steersman, but without any other duty to perform than the tiller could have performed for itself. Morley Jones stands beside him with his hands in his coat pockets, and Stanley Hall sits on the cabin skylight ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... the first time I saw him, and how I was startled at his eye, which was even then fixed upon me. He was standing at the ship's helm, being the first man that got there, when a steersman was called for by the pilot; for this Jackson was always on the alert for easy duties, and used to plead his delicate health as the reason for assuming them, as he did; though I used to think, that for a man in poor health, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... channel out to the open sea they went, all except the steersman hanging over the side of the craft and enjoying the amazing sights in the clear depths below. Bob excitedly pointed out a group of six or eight big tarpon lazily wallowing about fifty feet beneath them. And less than two minutes afterward, Paul, in no less excitement, announced the discovery ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... losing fight. But, fortunately, Luke's lines were cast upon the great waters, and he who fights the sea must learn to conquer, not by passionate effort, but by consistent, cool resolve. Those who worked with him feared him, and in so doing learnt the habit of his ways. The steersman, with one eye on the binnacle, knew always where to find him with the other; for Luke hardly moved during his entire watch on deck. He took his station at the starboard end of the narrow bridge when he came on duty, and from that ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... than the steersman gave the helm in charge to one of the ship-boys, and went to sleep. This was in direct violation of an invariable order of the admiral, that the helm should never be intrusted to the boys. The rest of the mariners who had the watch took like advantage ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... says he, in the spot designated to us, I landed with midshipman Moor, the steersman, Chleb Nikow, four sailors, and Alexis, a native of the Kuriles, who acted as interpreter. So deceived were we by the apparent friendliness of the Japanese, that we took no arms with us, except our swords. In order to destroy any distrust they might feel towards us, I ordered our boat to be ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... hurry to depart. Now and then a youthful steersman might chance to let fall a word about a good wind and a smooth sea. But such remarks were not tolerated; order had to be maintained on a ship. Those, therefore, who could not hold their tongues ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... one of the crew had slipped his foot off the stretcher, it must have gone through the bottom. There was a standing order that no man was to go into it with shoes on. She was to pull six oars, and her crew were the captains of the tops, the primest seamen in the ship, and the steersman no less a character than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... difficult to account for the motive that could have induced any mariner to land upon so unpropitious a spot, hemmed in as it was on every side, and apparently affording no outlet but that by which they had entered—the trackless and illimitable ocean. Without a moment's deliberation, however, the steersman, who had guided his boat into the creek, sprang lightly to the shore: another followed; while the third, folding himself in the capacious cloak his leader had thrown off, resumed his place, as if resolved to take his rest, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... mountain, came to the flat land, and at last, after a wearisome journey, during which they had seen the sun rise and set seven times, they arrived at the sea-coast. A ship lay ready at anchor, and when they inquired its destination, the steersman answered, "We are going to Selandia to fetch a cargo of cinnamon." To Haschem's question where they came from, and what this land where they were was called, he received for answer, "that the ship belonged to a merchant of Balsora, and that it had ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... up in her when the first canoe came under her hand. It was quite easy to manipulate the painter-rope. The stem had a notched knob provided for this very purpose, and there was a stern-post against which a steersman might press a paddle and thus swerve the canoe in any direction. But it was slow work. The craft were moored without any semblance of order, yet Suarez was forced to secure them in a definite sequence, or a string of ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... station at the stern of the uncouth craft, handling the steering-pole. The two travellers, standing upon the roof of the ark, admired their pilot's skill, and freely exchanged comments regarding him. To their murmured conversation, the steersman seemed dumb, deaf and indifferent; nevertheless, he gave the closest attention to every word, and his sense of hearing was as keen as that ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... end a sort of high poop-deck passes from side to side, on which the steersman takes his post. He holds in his hand an oar or paddle, which consists of a pole ten or twelve feet long, carrying at its extremity a circular disc of wood about a foot or a foot and a-half in diameter. The oars used by the six hands who ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... five miles an hour and there is no need of the oars. The steersman is our admiration, as with that clumsy stern-sweep he dodges rocks, runs riffles, and makes bends. The scow is made of green wood, and its resilience stands it in good stead as, like a snake, it writhes through tight channels or over ugly bits of water. Everybody is in good humour; we ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... all alight, and knew she must be a large steamer. She was now motionless and we had to row to her. Just then day broke, a beautiful quiet dawn with faint pink clouds just above the horizon, and a new moon whose crescent just touched the horizon. 'Turn your money over, boys,' said our cheery steersman, 'that is, if you have any with ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... must have gone through the bottom. There was a standing order that no man was to go into it with shoes on. She was to pull six oars, and her crew were the captains of the tops, the primest seamen in the ship, and the steersman, no less a ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... but, so far from making himself known to him, he hid his face in his hand: the reefer, however, was resolved to bring him to. "What, Bob Clewlines!" cried he, "do I not hail an old shipmate in you, a quarter-master on board the ——, the bravest heart of oak, the best reefer, and the merriest steersman of the whole ship's crew; and," said he audibly, that every one passing might hear and value fallen courage and fidelity, "and as prime a seaman as ever trimmed a sail, or served a gun; why, what has broke up your old hulk this way?" The man could not find utterance; remembrance of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 291 - Supplement to Vol 10 • Various
... our papers, instruments, medicine, and almost every article indispensible for the success of our enterprise. The canoe being under sail, a sudden squall of wind struck her obliquely, and turned her considerably. The man at the helm, who was unluckily the worst steersman of the party, became alarmed, and instead of putting her before the wind luffed her up into it. The wind was so high that it forced the brace of the squaresail out of the hand of the man who was attending it, and instantly ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... his head, took the tiller from the steersman, and bade him go below and fill himself. Will Cary went down, and returned in five minutes, with a plate of bread and beef, and a great jack of ale, coaxed them down Amyas's throat, as a nurse does with a child, and then scuttled below again with tears ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... my lads," said the old man, "a scow goes no faster than the river runs. Here's the great oar—twenty feet it is in length—made out of a young tree. The steersman uses that to straighten her up betimes. But there's nothing to make the boat run saving ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... parties on the straight courses. There they equip it with a bugle to herald its approach with joyous tootings, a bridle of steel wire by which it is steered in combination with pressure on a lever by means of the feet of the steersman, and also with a curious brake which consists of a nail studded board so rigged to the rear sled that the last man can drop it down to the ice and anchor it by the grip of the nails, thereby retarding its speed. ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... We'll soon know, then," replied Jacob Farnum. He passed the word for Andrews, who came on deck. The ventilators were quickly shipped. Jack Benson shifted to the steersman's seat inside the conning tower. Sailing lights were turned off; the manhole cover was battened down securely. They were dependent, now, on the air-compressing equipment whenever the air ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... slowly in the direction of the turtle till out of sight; in a very short time the line was rapidly carried out, there was a jerk, and the turtle was fast. The line was handled gently for two or three minutes, the steersman causing the canoe to follow the course of the turtle with great dexterity. It was soon exhausted and hauled up to the canoe. It was a small turtle, weighing a little under forty pounds (40 lbs.), but the sucking fish adhered so tenaciously to it as to raise it from the ground when ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... Toledo one of the drivers left, and the steersman employed our boy William, with the consent of the captain. I told George to tell William I wanted to see him at the expiration of the time set for him to drive. He came into the cabin, while the other passengers were on deck, and told ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... debauched, a holder of seventy-six benefices, M. de Tressan dreamed of the cardinal's hat, and aspired to obtain it from the Court of Rome at the cost of a persecution. The government was at that time drifting about, without compass or steersman, from the hands of Madame de Prie to those of Paris-Duverney. Little cared they for the fate of the Reformers. "This castaway of the regency," says M. Lemontey, "was adopted without memorial, without examination, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... stem to stern underneath the swan's belly, and is connected with a wheel below the water. This rudder, which is made of metal and covered with hippopotamus hide, is sharp and slightly rounded. The mode in which it is fixed gives the steersman great control over the vessel, the more so as it moves the swan's head as well as the tail by ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... flying monster. Inch by inch we gained on him, encouraged by the hoarse objurgations of the mate, whose excitement was intense. After what seemed a terribly long chase, we found his speed slackening, and we redoubled our efforts. Now we were close upon him; now, in obedience to the steersman, the boat sheered out a bit, and we were abreast of his labouring flukes; now the mate hurls his quivering lance with such hearty good-will that every inch of its slender shaft disappears within the ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... arm of the Coromantee, the Catamaran was fast coming round towards the wind,—and so shortening the distance between the swimmer and the craft,—when an object came under the eye of her steersman that caused him to drop the oar as if either his arm had become suddenly paralysed, or the piece of rounded ash grasped between his hands had become transformed into a bar ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... in Ben Gibson's boat, of which old Tom was steersman. He would handle the iron too, for as I have said, Ben was just as green in the actual practice of whalemanship as I was myself. We raced with the other boats for the nearest prize, which proved to be a husky bull, longer than the baleener ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... scene. Far ahead the paddlers can hear the roar of the swirl. Now the surface of the river rounds and rises in the eddies of an undertow, and the canoe leaps forward; then, a swifter plunge through the middle of a furious overfall. The steersman rises at the stern and leans ...
— 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
... of retribution had arrived. Dionysus assumed the form of a lion, whilst beside him appeared a bear, which, with a terrific roar, rushed upon the captain and tore him in pieces; the sailors, in an agony of terror, leaped overboard, and were changed into dolphins. The discreet and pious steersman was alone permitted to escape the fate of his companions, {128} and to him Dionysus, who had resumed his true form, addressed words of kind and affectionate encouragement, and announced his name and dignity. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... characters are apparent to the eye even of the uninitiated Gentile. In the Jewish people we see Nature steering one of her cargoes of differentiated humanity between the Scylla and Charybdis of the modern sea of industrial civilization. And race instinct is her steersman. ...
— Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View • Arthur Keith
... In the sky in the east was a long streak of greenish light, which widened and rose until it grew to be of an opal colour, then orange; then, behold, the round red disc of the sun rose flaming up above the horizon. All the water blushed as he got up; the deck was all red; the steersman gave his helm to another, and prostrated himself on the deck, and bowed his head eastward, and praised the Maker of the sun: it shone on his white turban as he was kneeling, and gilt up his bronzed face, and sent his blue shadow over the glowing deck. The distances, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hurrying aft. Ere meeting them midway, Israel, quick as lightning, cast off the two principal halyards, thus letting the large sails all in a tumble of canvass to the deck. Next moment one of the officers was at the helm, to prevent the cutter from capsizing by being without a steersman in such an emergency. The other officer and Israel interlocked. The battle was in the midst of the chaos of blowing canvass. Caught in a rent of the sail, the officer slipped and fell near the sharp iron edge of the hatchway. As he fell he ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... and grape, and the fire of the enemy was silenced. No other casualties occurred on board of the steamer, but many of the crew narrowly escaped harm, particularly those who were near the wheel house. The sailing master and the steersman had their clothes pierced by bullets, and the sides and decks of the steamer were similarly marked in many places. The river, becoming still narrower and more crooked above Gainesville, it was found entirely ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... just when his work was done; and we must turn round and face a few land-going problems not quite so easy of solution. So Claude and I thought, as we leant over the sloop's bows, listening neither to the Ostend story forwards nor the forty-stanza ballad aft, which the old steersman was moaning on, careless of listeners, to keep himself awake at the helm. Forty stanzas or so we did count from curiosity; the first line of each of ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... it seemed to all of us to be out thus in the freedom of the night and the sea—not least to the great noble-headed hound sitting up on his haunches, keen and watchful by the steersman's side. What a strange waste of a life so short to be sleeping there on the land, when one might be out and away on such business ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... the boats' crews were busily employed in getting their respective boats and gear ready for action. Each boat had a harpooner, who pulled the bow oar, a steersman, next to him in rank, who steered, and a line-manager, who pulled the after or stroke oar; and besides them were two or three seamen who ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... in the moon noteworthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), 160 She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman— Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even! 165 Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better! Proves ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... the river? That was the first problem to be solved, and of this there appeared to be no possible solution. There was no sun to guide them; no visible sky. Even had there been both, it would scarce have mended the matter. The steersman could not tell whether, on straying from the channel, he had drifted to the south or the north, the east or the west; and, indeed, an intellect less obtuse than that of Tipperary Tom might have been puzzled upon the point. It has been already ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... there was great confusion. The steamer was right upon us, and I heard the order given to stop the paddles. In the same moment I saw the steersman of the galley lay his hand on the prisoner's shoulder, and the prisoner start up, lean across his captor, and pull the cloak from the neck of a shrinking man in the galley. Still in the same moment I saw that the face disclosed was the face of the other convict of long ago, and white terror was on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... dawned, the viking saw a goodly vessel making gallant headway. As she drew near the land with streamer flying and broad sails flapping in the wind, the viking saw that there was no soul on board of her; and yet, without steersman to guide her, the vessel avoided the shoals and held her way straight to the spot where ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... think I didn't care?" asked the other boy. "If you mean a real old batteau steersman, I never saw one either. I reckon I'd have gone a few hundred yards to see one of 'em if he's the real goods. Since the steamboats came in, I thought they'd all played out. Are these ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... the deep, Like a mirror sleeps the ocean, And the anxious steersman sees Round him neither stir ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... sketching them. The largest had about thirty rowers, the smaller only eighteen. The warriors stood on the stage, and encouraged the rowers, or paddlers rather, to exert themselves. Some youths were seated high up on the carved stem above the steersman, with white wands in their hands, apparently to look out and give notice of what they saw. The warriors were completely equipped for war, and the quantity and weight of cloth they had on them made it difficult to conceive how they could ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... circle, and make at him again. The second time he hit the bird, and struck it to the deck.... This strange fact made him uneasy, and he thought it betokened danger; he went to the binnacle, saw the course he was steering, and without any particular reason he ordered the steersman to alter the course one point to ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing, Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place. For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the bell's admonition, The bows turn,—the freighted ship, tacking, speeds away under her grey sails; The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious wealth, speeds away gaily ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... joy, and the King, when he beheld her, saw that her beauty was still greater than the picture had represented, and thought nothing else but that his heart would jump out of his mouth. Presently she stepped on board, and the King conducted her below; but the faithful John remained on deck by the steersman, and told him to unmoor the ship and put on all the sail he could, that it might fly as a bird through the air. Meanwhile the King showed the Princess all the golden treasures—the dishes, cups, bowls, ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... chance. One tremendous pull from Trinity, and half that distance has disappeared. Another such stroke, and you are aboard of them. Hurrah! a bump—a bump! Not so. Caius is on the look-out; and with a skilful inclination of the rudder, the steersman makes his boat fall off—just the least bit in the world, but enough—Trinity overlaps, but does not touch. Another moment, and Trinity is ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... stern like a piece of chaff. Ah Choon caught a spoke of the wheel, and swung in behind it. But a strapping Raratonga vahine (woman)—she must have weighed two hundred and fifty—brought up against him, and got an arm around his neck. He clutched the kanaka steersman with his other hand; and just at that moment the schooner ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... and a few minutes later Lavinia saw his trim brown launch, with its awning and steersman in gleaming white, rushing ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... steersman let the ship drift upon a ridge of rock, although, as Columbus says, indignantly, there were breakers abundant to show the danger. So soon as she struck, the boy cried out, and Columbus was the first to wake. He says, by way of apology for himself, that for thirty-six hours he had not slept ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... that even during 103the short time which had elapsed since we quitted it, the sea had become considerably rougher, and the line of surf now presented anything but an encouraging appearance. As we approached the breakers the steersman desired us to back with our oars till he saw a favourable opportunity; and the moment he gave us the signal to pull in as hard as we were able. After a short pause the signal was given, and we attempted to pull in as he had directed; but, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... submerged, only the tip of our conning staff being out of the water. But by an ingenious system of tiny mirrors the steersman was able to see his way as plainly as if he had been on deck above ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... conversation the boat had been lowered, and, with Mr. Walters as steersman, was being pulled toward the land. Now Neal and Teddy were sorry they had not accompanied the sailing master; but it was too late for regrets, and the odor did not seem to be nearly as disagreeable since they knew ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... to Icelanders, and loaded with skins and peltry. They sailed to Hardanger, where they heard the greatest number of people assembled; but when the folks came to deal with them, nobody would buy their skins. Then the steersman went to King Harald, whom he had been acquainted with before, and complained of his ill luck. The king promised to visit him, and did so. King Harald was very condescending, and full of fun. He came with a fully manned boat, looked at the skins, and then said to the steersman, "Wilt thou give me ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... enveloped the scene. Dick Herron rose suddenly to his feet and shot. The bear collapsed into the muddied water, his head doubled under, a thin stream of arterial blood stringing away down the current. Haukemah and his steersman rose dripping. A short pause ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... had been constituted principal steersman of the expedition, in virtue of his well-tried skill and indomitable energy, felt that the tone in which this was said implied a want of confidence in his willingness to go under any circumstances, so ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... ago. She didn't seem particular where she went, or whether she started again or stopped for good after getting stuck. Her machinery sounded like a chapter of accidents and was always out of order, but she got along all the same, provided the steersman kept her ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... boy was on the canal-packet speeding homeward at the highest pace of the three-horse team, and the Boy's Town was out of sight. He could not sleep for excitement that night, and he came and spent the time talking on quite equal terms with the steersman, one of the canalers whom he had admired afar in earlier and simpler days. He found him a very amiable fellow, by no means haughty, who began to tell him funny stories, and who even let him take the helm for a while. The rudder-handle was of polished iron, very different ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... and raked the vessel. "How she does pitch!" he said. "There goes a wave slap over her bows. There's only two people on deck besides the steersman. There's a man lying down, and a—chap in a—cloak with a—Hooray!—it's Dob, by Jingo!" He clapped to the telescope and flung his arms round his mother. As for that lady, let us say what she did in the words of a favourite poet—"Dakruoen gelasasa." She was sure it was William. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the sweeping gale; While o'er the foam the ship impetuous flies, The helm the attentive timoneer applies: As in pursuit along the aerial way, With ardent eye the falcon marks his prey, Each motion watches of the doubtful chase, Obliquely wheeling through the fluid space; So, govern'd by the steersman's GLOWING hands, The regent ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... all the natives. They called out Eige-ea Eige, and hastened to give place to the new-comers. The canoe, rowed by ten men, large and elegantly embellished with muscle-shells, soon approached us. The heads of the rowers and of the steersman were decorated with green boughs, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... our electric steersman, who had been a workman in Mr. Edison's laboratory and had ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... in the boat it was manned by four oarsmen and one steersman, and as passengers, Norris, an Englishman and myself, and brought over a mail. We landed at Cobb Neck. Morris said he would start back from the other side ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... thou spoken the rest, save one thing, O stranger lady, for 'tis a heavy weight upon me that this man should be slain. For I was steersman of the vessel to these ills,[78] but he is a fellow-sailor because of mine own troubles. In no wise then is it right that I should do thee a favor to his destruction, and myself escape from ills. But let it be thus. Give him the letter, for he will send it to Argos, so as to be well for ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... quiet in the lugger; no one spoke, except when the steersman was relieved, or when the master wished something done among the rigging. The men settled down on the weather side with their pipes and quids, and all through the short summer night we lay there, huddled half asleep together, running to the south like a stag. At dawn the wind ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... four streams, each of them wider than England's widest, the Thames. We now approached the low, reedy banks of Butler's Island, and passed the rice-mill and buildings surrounding it, all of which, it being Sunday, were closed. As we neared the bank, the steersman took up a huge conch, and in the barbaric fashion of early times in the Highlands, sounded out our approach. A pretty schooner, which carries the produce of the estate to Charleston and Savannah, lay alongside the wharf, which began to be crowded with negroes, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... looked sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip! The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white; From the sails the dew did drip— Till clomb[40-28] above the eastern bar The horned Moon,[40-29] with one bright star Within the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... "Well," the steersman said finally, "I've told ye all I can tell ye. That other schooner that had a tug to sta'bo'd like this, the Marlin B., got a bad name from the Georges to Monomoy P'int. You ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... fighting on a field which women may rightly claim for their own. He really loved Etta. He was trying to gauge the meaning of a little change in her tone toward him—a change so subtle that few men could have detected it. But Claude de Chauxville —accomplished steersman through the shoals of human nature, especially through those very pronounced shoals who call themselves women of the world—Claude de Chauxville knew the value of the slightest change of manner, should that change manifest ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... wonderful notes, so generous and so penetrating with their sublime meaning, all on board the ship looked and listened with amazement. The hands of the steersman held the wheel listlessly. Brandon's own soul was filled with the fullest effects. He stood watching her figure, with its inspired lineaments, and thought of the fabled prodigies of music spoken of in ancient story. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... voice broke into the song with the order to let go the anchor. As the ship swung to the tide the steersman, who wore neither coat nor waistcoat, could be seen idly handling the wheel still, though his duties were necessarily at an end. He was a young man, and a gay salutation of his unemployed hand toward the ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... sekreta. Steam vaporo. Steamboat vaporsxipo. Steam-engine vapormasxino. Steed cxevalo. Steel sxtalo. Steelyard pesilo, pesmasxino. Steep kruta. Steep trempi. Steeple pregxeja turo. Steer juna bovviro. Steer direkti. Steerage antauxparto. Steersman direktilisto. Stem trunketo. Stem of a pipe pipa tubo. Stem (of ship) antauxparto. Stench malbonodoro. Stenographer stenografisto. Stenography stenografio. Step sxtupo. Step pasxi. Step by step pasxo post pasxo, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... another; that which alone unites them into a collection force is a common belief, an idea. Ideas are related to feeling—to quote a comparison from John Stuart Mill's valuable treatise Auguste Comte and Positivism, 3d ed., 1882, a work of which we have made considerable use—as the steersman who directs the ship is to the steam which drives it forward. Thus the history of humanity has been determined by the history of man's intellectual convictions, and this in turn by the three familiar stages ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... nervous shock. We knew on the top of the hill that a fearful storm was raging, but we did not see the white boat flying like a bird over the seven great rollers, or there would have been no sleep for us that night. The crew never forgot it, nor the calm pluck of their steersman the Bishop. I must confess that an attack of fever was the result of all this exertion when he joined ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... one of several vessels, cruising against the enemies' barges, and the refugee boats, that infested the Delaware River and Bay. His ship was the Hyder Ally, a small vessel of sixteen six pounders. As a superior vessel of the enemy was approaching, Barney directed his steersman to interpret his commands by the rule ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... won't do. We must raise a white- ash-breeze (meaning that we must have recourse to our paddles) or we shall not see the Nine-Mile Creek this day, I can tell you." The impetus given to our canoe by the vigorous application of eight paddles, independent of our steersman, made the De Witt Clinton (the name of our canoe) fly through the water, which was now as calm as a mirror. After the wind fell, the heat was intense; and, towards noon huge double-headed thunder-clouds showed themselves, ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... evolution had brought into use in the changeable mountain rivers. They were a canoe-shaped open boat, sixty feet long by eight wide, and were pushed up the stream by quants or poles. They required a crew of five men,—four to do the poling, and a steersman. In the swiftest "chutes" they carried a line ashore and made fast to a tree, then warped the boat up to quieter water and resumed the poling. Each boat would carry eight tons, and, compared with teaming over roads of which the "bottom had dropped out," it ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... an eye on the owner of those millions. His bards were awake to his anxiety, and celebrated John Mattock's doings with a trump and flourish somewhat displeasing to a quietly-disposed commoner. John's entry into Parliament as a Liberal was taken for a sign of steersman who knew where the tide ran. But your Liberals are sometimes Radicals in their youth, and his choice of parties might not be so much sagacity as an instance of unripe lightheadedness. A young conservative millionaire is less disturbing. The very wealthy young peer is never wanton in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... face. She did not wrench herself from that forbidden embrace. She let those lips kiss hers as never mortal man had kissed her before. But an instant later, when Montesma's attention was distracted by his duties as steersman, and he let her go, she slipped away in the darkness, and melted from his sight and touch like a modern Undine. He dared not leave the helm and follow her then. He sent one of the sailors below a little later, to make sure that she was safe in her cabin; but ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... skilled in the mariner's art, as the women of that island mostly are, she made sail and casting the oars and rudder adrift, committed herself altogether to the mercy of the waves, conceiving that it must needs happen that the wind would either overturn a boat without lading or steersman or drive it upon some rock and break it up, whereby she could not, even if she would, escape, but must of necessity be drowned. Accordingly, wrapping her head in a mantle, she laid herself, weeping, in the bottom of ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... in the moonlight, when all were asleep, except the steersman who stood at the helm, she sat at the side of the ship trying to pierce the clear water with her eyes, and fancied she saw her father's palace, and above it her old grandmother with her silver crown on her head, looking up through the cross ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... the keleustes, who presided over the rowers and gave the signal for each stroke, and the pilot, who was supposed to have a knowledge of the local waters and of wind and weather, and who acted as steersman, handling alone, or with the help of his assistants, the long stern oar that served as a rudder. The fighting men were not sailors, but soldiers embarked to fight afloat, and their military chief commanded the ship, with the help of the pilot. For more than ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... land should receive three reals and a pot of arrack. On the 4th November they saw patches of duckweed and a seal, and inferred their vicinity to land. The first pilot, Francis Jacobzs, on the 7th, supported by the advice of the steersman, thus delivered his opinion:—"We should keep to the 44 deg. south latitude, until we have passed 150 deg. longitude; then make for latitude 40 deg. south, and keeping in that parallel to run eastward ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... and donned his armour of war; and they cried aloud, wondrously eager. And he drew his sword from the sheath and cut the hawsers at the stern. And near the maiden he took his stand ready armed by the steersman Aneaeus, and with their rowing the ship sped on as they strained desperately to drive her ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... be strained to the limit. Forward the boat was a mere smudge, the men curled up asleep and no longer visible. All that stood out with any distinctness of outline was the lug sail, stiff as a board. I endeavored to turn my head, without disturbing the slumbering girl, to gain view of the steersman. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... in English called the Commonwealth, of 20 peice of Ordnance. then hee tooke our master, merchant and ten seamen more out of our Ship and left seven of us aboard and soe went aboard his man of war againe and ordered the Dutch Steersman, whome hee left with Eleven Dutchmen more on board of our Ship, to Steere after the man of War, and in case wee should bee parted by weather to Saile with our Ship to the Groyne in Galecia, as the said Steeresman informed mee: the same night following wee lost the man of War—the ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... summer and to the rains of autumn. After a hard day's push they would take their 'fillee,' or ration of whisky, and, having swallowed a miserable supper of meat half burnt, and of bread half baked, stretched themselves, without covering, on the deck, and slumber till the steersman's call invited them to the morning 'fillee.' Notwithstanding this, the boatman's life had charms as irresistible as those presented by the splendid illusions of the stage. Sons abandoned the comfortable farms of their fathers, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... was less fortuitous than it seemed to be. As a reward of merit for having saved the mate's life, he had been told off to serve temporarily as man-of-all-work for the day pilot, who chanced to be without a steersman. His watch in the pilot-house was over, and he was on his way to the crew's quarters below when he stumbled upon Miss Farnham. Mindful of his earlier slip, he passed her as if she had been invisible. She let him go until her opportunity was ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... scattered irregular splashes became almost as one, and though they were given slowly, the effect was steady and the steersman proved to be doing his part so carefully and well that the flashes from behind became more distant and sounded fainter, and the last seemed to come from round ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... launch split her way swiftly toward the north. By the vague, ghostly shimmer of light upon the waters, a tense smile appeared on the steersman's lips. In his dark eyes gleamed the joy which to some men ranks supreme above all other joys—that of bending others to his will, of dominating them, of making them the ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... the largest of the booths, which was the sleeping-house of the steersman Valbrand and more than half the crew, Alwin came out of the door and stood looking listlessly about. He had spent the afternoon scouring helmets amid a babble of directions and fault-finding, accented by blows. Helga did not see him; ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... brought me my first grief. She came up behind us with her horses at the full trot. Their boat was down the canal a hundred yards or so at the end of the tow-line; and just before the boat itself drew even with ours she was laid over by her steersman to the opposite side of the ditch, her horses were checked so as to let her line so slacken as to drop down under our boat, her horses were whipped up by a sneering boy on a tall bay steed, her team went outside ours on the tow-path, and the passage ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... tried to steal past; forty against one were heavy odds. But it was moonlight and he was discovered. The pirates lay across his course and cut him off. Esbern made ready for a fight and steered straight into the middle of them. The steersman complained that he had no armor, and he gave him his own. He beat his pursuers off again and again, but the wind slackened and they were closing in once more, swearing by their heathen gods that they would have him dead or alive, for a Danish prisoner ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... Norwegian captain, has been forced by a tempest to anchor his vessel in a sheltered bay within a few miles of his peaceful home, where Senta, his only daughter, awaits him. All on board are sleeping, and the steersman alone keeps watch over the anchored vessel, singing of the maiden he loves and of the gifts he is bringing her from foreign lands. In the midst of his song, the Flying Dutchman's black-masted vessel with its red sails enters ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... am a weather-cock—I turn whichever way the wind blows, and try to point right, but at the same time I creak, so that it hurts my own ears and those of other people. I am content if now and then a steersman may set his sails rightly by my indication; though after all, it is all the same to me. I will turn round and round, whether others look at me or no—What ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
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