"Grapnel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... repelling the boarders. Part of our people mustered in the waist, where it was expected the proa would fall alongside, and part on the forecastle. Just as this distribution was made, the pirates cast their grapnel. It was admirably thrown, but caught only by a ratlin. I saw this, and was about to jump into the rigging to try what I could do to clear it, when Neb again went ahead of me, and cut the ratlin with his knife. This was ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... close astern. His call fetched up Captain Wilcox, who ran aft and hailed, but got no reply. And so she came on, until, sheering close up under the Hand and Glove's port quarter, she was able to heave a grapnel on board and throw twenty well-armed Johnnies into the old brig. The Englishmen— seven in all, and taken unprepared—were soon driven below and shut down—four in the cabin, two in the steerage, and one in the forecastle, this last being Abe Cummins. After ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... others of the seamen they saw floating on the water, with their throats cut from ear to ear. The fourth sailor they found dead in the boat, mangled in the same shocking manner. With much difficulty these unhappy people got into their boat, and, cutting her grapnel, pulled off from this treacherous shore. While this was performing, they clearly saw the natives, whom in their account they term voracious cannibals, dragging the bodies of Captain Hill and the seamen from the beach toward some large fires, which they supposed were prepared for ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... about the matter, and Ben landed the visitors in the ferry-boat. The Woodville then ran down to the Goblins, and towed the raft out to the spot where the anchors lay. A boat grapnel was dragged over the spot, the cables hooked, and the anchors hauled up with the derrick on the raft, from which they ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... strong but the qualifications of the commanding officer; in which case, it is well that preparations for the landing begin early. There should be a coil of rope made ready at either end of the boat, and also a light line with a grapnel attached to It. What is a grapnel? How strange that question sounds to us now, mighty mariners that we have become! But of course we should remember that there was a time when we did not know ourselves. Well, a grapnel is much like one of those fish-hooks ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... account whatever. With my boat I carried away everything that I had left there belonging to her, though not necessary for the bare going thither - viz. a mast and sail which I had made for her, and a thing like an anchor, but which, indeed, could not be called either anchor or grapnel; however, it was the best I could make of its kind: all these I removed, that there might not be the least shadow for discovery, or appearance of any boat, or of any human habitation upon the island. Besides ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... a long line, such as is used in tying the launch to the shore, and after several vain attempts the grapnel caught in the top of ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... about so quickly that no eye could follow him, and caught the spear with his left hand, and hurled it back at Karli's ship, and that man got his death who stood before it. Kolskegg snatched up a grapnel and cast it at Karli's ship, and the fluke fell inside the hold, and went out through one of the planks and in rushed the coal-blue sea, and all the men sprang on board ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... the squalls came so heavily that they thought it best to lower the sail and reef it. Towards nightfall the wind had risen so much that they made for the land, and when darkness came on threw out the little grapnel the boat carried, a hundred yards or so from the shore, at a point where no village was visible. Here they were sheltered from the wind and, spreading out the nets to form a bed, they laid themselves down in the bottom of the boat, pulling the ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... do they drop from the top of the wall? Not they! Slowly creeping, they make their way down the side of the jar; they use their fore-part, ever in quest of information, as a crutch and grapnel in one. They reach the meat and at once instal ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... attached to the line, were dropped in the centre of the stream, forming local anchors, each of which was kept from dragging by the assistance of those above it, until the uppermost of all was reached, which got its "backing" from the anchor, or grapnel, that lay well out in the lake. In consequence of this expedient, the ark floated clear of the incumbrances of the shore, against which it would otherwise have been unavoidably hauled at every turn, producing embarrassments that Hutter, single-handed, would have found ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... covers it from attack there. However, there are six or eight feet of level ground between the foot of the wall and the edge of the ravine. The walls are twenty feet in height. With fifty feet of that rope I will make a ladder, and will get hold of a piece of iron to make a grapnel of. How much ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... officer of the Adamant, who commanded the fourth boat, did not give up the fight. Having noted the spring armour of Crab K, he believed that if he could get a grapnel between its steel ribs he yet might capture the sea-monster. For some minutes Crab K contented itself with eluding him; but, tired of this, it turned, and raising its huge nippers almost out of the water, it seized the bow of the boat, and gave it a gentle crunch, after which ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton |
