"Helmsman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Petty Officer Brown, the helmsman, were quivering on the helm. Wells' fists kept tensing and relaxing as he peered for a sight of the enemy in the teleview. Nothing showed but the moving fingers of spectral kelp. Then both he and Bowman cried ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... the port watch. The captain had been two hours at the wheel, and it was Morris's turn to take his trick; and the change was made. At the same time Felix McGavonty relieved Louis. Although the helmsman was always in position to see out ahead of the steamer, the other member of the watch was required to serve as lookout ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... their silver crowns Pilot and helmsman are, And an angel with a wreath of rue Tosseth ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... joy swept through Rod's entire being as he clutched the wooden handle and moved it to left or right as the captain ordered. Never did any commander in charge of the largest vessel feel greater pride than did the young helmsman. His face glowed, and his eyes sparkled with excitement, while the breeze tossed ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... to climb up on to the bowsprit, for every time she pitched I went under water. However, I got up at last and swarmed along the bowsprit and got on board. There was a chap sitting down fast asleep there. I walked aft to the helmsman. Two men were pacing up and down in front of him. 'You're a nice lot, you are,' I said, 'to go running down Channel at ten knots an hour without any watch, a-walking over ships and a-drowning of seamen. I'll have the law of ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... Government seem for a war with America, that it did not wait for an apology, before making extensive military preparations. With that brave but cool-headed Captain on our Ship of State, Abraham Lincoln, and that prudent helmsman, William H. Seward, we could not easily have been driven into a war with England at this time; but we might have been humiliated even more than we were, by the peremptory demands of Lord Palmerston—might have been obliged to eat ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... three men in her. The helmsman was a patriarch, his head showing white, a full white beard descending from his chin, a fierce-visaged, vigorous old man. Near him stood a man of middle age, a ruddy-faced man in whose dark blue eyes a flame burned as he eyed ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... "The helmsman, seven sailors, two passengers and myself swam through the tempestuous sea toward the cliffs which had shattered our ship. The brave captain and all the other passengers went to ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... pockets were in when the "buttons" were under the control of inexperienced lawyers, the number of "starvers" would be doubled. What "eminent" lawyer is there who does not look back to the "practice" of his youth, in perfect terror to witness the mistakes he made, as the helmsman, who has scudded through the breakers to the open sea, glances back at the dangers ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... had the wind been a little stronger, we should have capsized in an instant. The lion went manfully to work, and by dint of hard poling, shoved us off, and came to anchor in deep water. Not until the danger was past did he open his batteries on the unlucky helmsman, and then the explosion of Arabic oaths was equal to a broadside of twenty-four pounders. We lay all night rocking on the swells, and the next morning, by firing a number of signal guns, brought out a boat, which took us off. We entered the mouth of the Orontes, and sailed nearly a mile between ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... echoed noisily across the silent water. On the upper deck of the mail-boat Robin Greve and Mary Trevert stood side by side at the rail. They had the deck to themselves. Above their heads on the bridge the captain stood immobile, a square black figure, the helmsman at his elbow. Otherwise, between the stars and the sea, the man and the girl ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... of the strong probability that Thomas English was helmsman of the MAY-FLOWER'S shallop (and so savior of her sovereign company, at the entrance of Plymouth harbor on the stormy night of the landing on Clarke's Island), and that hence to him the salvation of the Pilgrim colony is probably ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... gathering from every quarter, obscured with darkness the light of day. The panic-stricken sailors ran to their stations and took in sail before the squall was upon them, but the gale did not drive the waves in any one direction and the helmsman lost his bearings and did not know what course to steer. At one moment the wind would set towards Sicily, but the next, the North Wind, prevailing on the Italian coast, would drive the unlucky vessel hither and yon; ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... the mizzen crosstrees with the skipper, the second mate, the helmsman, and a couple of Sou'wegians who had been working aft. In the maintop were the first mate and three or four of the crew, and in the foretop were the rest, all bunched together and ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... swerved suddenly from the track; and bearing sharply to the left, under the manege of a skilful helmsman, was running down under the ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... had been without a helmsman for a moment because the man at the helm had been killed by a bursting shell that had literally forced his body between the spokes of the wheel, was swaying about like a drunken person owing to the heavy blows of the enemy's shells. Now she recovered her course and the commander issued his ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... voices. "A water-logged derelict, I think, sir," said the second officer quietly, coming down from aloft with the binoculars in their case slung across his shoulders; and our captain, without a word, signed to the helmsman to steer for the black speck. Presently we made out a low, jagged stump sticking up forward—all that ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... and everyone on the ship but the helmsman had turned in, leaving the boys and Ben on watch, when there came a terrific shock that caused the vessel to quiver and creak as if she had run bow on into solid land. Captain Hazzard was thrown from his bunk and all over the vessel there was ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... complement of giants was some hundred and twenty. Of these some sat along each side of the island, rowing with big cypresses, from which the branches and leaves were not stripped; in the stern, so to speak, was a considerable hillock, on which stood the helmsman with his hand on a brazen steering- oar of half a mile in length; and on the deck forward were forty in armour, the combatants; they resembled men except in their hair, which was flaming fire, so that they could dispense with helmets. The work of sails was done by the abundant ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... frightened. Finally, having thrown their fish overboard, those in one boat chose a favorable opportunity, and succeeded, by skill and good luck, in reaching the land; but they were unwilling to take the responsibility of telling the others when to come in, and as the other helmsman was inexperienced, their boat was swamped at once, yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... said a deep, rough voice, which proceeded from the helmsman, "that we should have any fellowship with those priests of the devil, those monks and friars ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... very crestfallen under their little mistress' reproaches, and held up their hands in a deprecating manner; while the helmsman stood up and, after salaaming deeply, entered upon a long explanation, which ended in his asking if he might come on board to see his chief. Permission was at once granted by the captain, upon the request being interpreted to him. When he mounted the steps, Bahi led him to the ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... of the Spirit, which is the great need of the age we live in. The Church seems to be lying listless as a sailing ship, due to leave harbour, but still waiting for a breeze. Her masts are firm, the canvas ready to be stretched, and her equipment complete. The helmsman stands impatient at the wheel, and all the sailors are alert, but not a ripple runs along the vessel's side. She waits, and must wait, for a heavenly breeze to fill her sails, and till it comes she cannot ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... distress. Not so in the ship of the realm. The most troublesome persons in it are usually the least recognized for such, and the most active in its management; the best men mind their own business patiently, and are never thought of; the good helmsman never touches the tiller but in the last extremity; and the worst forms of misery are hidden, not only from every eye, but from every thought. On the deck, the aspect is of Cleopatra's galley—under hatches there is a slave hospital; while, finally (and this ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... not the first time we have encountered danger. We have been saved from the hands of the Cyclops through our own valor and clever devices, and we are not going to break down now. Listen, and I will tell you what is to be done. Keep your seats and ply your oars with all your might; but thou, O helmsman, steer thy ship clear of that fog and the whirling waves.' Thus I spoke, and ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... who had been lounging over the poop rail watching us work, and at whom I had been casting curious and fearful glances as I rushed about beneath his arctic glare, now swung about and damned the helmsman's eye with soft voiced, deadly words. The mates' voices dropped low, and we listened to Yankee Swope's storm of ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... it ne'er had eat, And round and round it flew. The ice did split with a thunder-fit; The helmsman ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... beautiful; the sea was smooth as glass, and the stars shone with unusual splendor in the clear sky. The poltroon monarch of all the Russias had not yet ventured upon deck, but was trembling in his cabin, surrounded by his dismayed mistresses, when the helmsman entered the cabin and said ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... The helmsman complied; and, as the Scud was now dashing the water aside merrily, a minute or two put the canoe so far to leeward as to render escape impracticable. Jasper now sprang to the helm himself and, by judicious and careful handling, he got ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... after leaving port, at three o'clock in the morning, all the Spaniards being asleep except the two officers on the watch, who were the boatswain, Juan Robles, and the carpenter, Juan Bautista Gayete, and the helmsman and his boy, the negroes revolted suddenly, wounded dangerously the boatswain and the carpenter, and successively killed eighteen men of those who were sleeping upon deck, some with hand-spikes and hatchets, and others by throwing them alive overboard, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... grapple with it manfully and honestly, and it was not his fault that he did not settle it. The vices of Fox were those of the age in which he lived; had he been reserved for the present epoch, what a different biography should we have to write of him! What a helmsman he might be at the present time, when the ship of Old England is at sea and ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... contrast to this black dripping wharf, almost deserted, on which were seen, through the mist as through a sheet of oiled paper, a few passengers wrapped in ulsters and formless india-rubber garments, and the helmsman standing motionless, muffled in his hooded cloak, his manner grave and sibylline, behind this notice printed ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... hasty preparations been made, before the piratical schooner, which had made a wide tack outward to catch the wind, came swiftly sweeping round to their side, like a towering falcon on his prey. But, by some miscalculation of her helmsman, she went twenty yards wide of them—not, however, without betraying the full extent of her bloody purposes; for as, under the impulse of a speed she found herself unable instantly to check, she swept by on the long, rolling billows, a score or two of desperate ruffians, headed by their burly and ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... alarming force. To advance was seen to be impossible, and to turn back was almost equally perilous. It was no time for indecision, for another great breaker was rolling toward us. With a single signal word from the helmsman, with perfect coolness, a few powerful strokes at just the right time reversed our little bark, and we were soon in safe ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... to walk the quarter-deck jaunty again. And we came to a great cleft in th' long weary rock of ice; and the sides o' th' cleft were not jagged, but went straight sharp down into th' foaming waters. But we took but one look at what lay inside, for our captain, with a loud cry to God, bade the helmsman steer nor'ards away fra' th' mouth o' Hell. We all saw wi' our own eyes, inside that fearsome wall o' ice—seventy miles long, as we could swear to—inside that gray, cold ice, came leaping flames, all red and yellow wi' heat o' some unearthly kind out ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... was bound to be the idol of his sailors and one of them quite plausibly related that "so great was the confidence he inspired that if he but looked at a sail through his glass and told the helmsman to steer for her, the observation went round,'If she is ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... use to cry out "Lei" or "Stali," for no other craft was afloat at that hour, and the gondola was unimpeded in its course. Crossing the Grand Canal the helmsman made for the Guidecca, and on past the Punta di Santa Maria, and on still, away across the wide and silent lagune, right on to ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... nothing else. They must have chosen this late hour purposely; they had doubtless endeavored to slip past us unobserved, seeking some more desolate spot on the coast where they might land unseen. Possibly, deceived by the night, the helmsman had approached closer to the wharf than he had intended; yet, nevertheless, if he held to his present course, he must surely touch shore not more than five hundred yards distant. In all ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... Tacking;" for such a staff, stuck on the taffrail with the boom touching it, was "an impossible object," and would have been instantly snapped off, while, moreover, the ensign should have been at the peak. In another admirable drawing Punch once showed a ship on the starboard tack while the helmsman is steering on the port tack, and the ship, by what appears a miracle, is lying over to the wind; and, again, Toby is actually shown in the Almanac for 1895 drawing a cork from a champagne bottle with a cork-screw! Then photographers are as resentful of inaccuracy ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... The helmsman turned to me with a look of silly fright on his face, as the wheel revolved useless in his hands. We had shelved with scarcely a jar sufficient to disturb those sleeping below, but in a twinkling Jackson, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... shot out of the tulles just ahead of her. The helmsman took one look at the five men in the little craft and dropped his tiller to pick up a double-barreled shotgun. He shouted to the sailors; they sprang for weapons, and the two miners in the cabin leaped up the companion ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... horses. These swam so well that none were drowned, albeit a few, grown weary, were borne down some length by the tide. Then they carried their gold and harness on board, since they must needs make the passage. Hagen was the helmsman, and steered many a gallant knight to the unknown land. First he took over a thousand, and thereto his own band of warriors. Then followed more: nine thousand squires. The knight of Trony was not idle that day. The ship was huge, strongly ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... and struggling for their lives, the men had not appeared to observe the rough shoves and cutting stabs with which Lawless had held his post in the confusion. But perhaps they had already begun to understand somewhat more clearly, perhaps another ear had overheard the helmsman's speech. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Captain Jonathan Wellsby wiped the brine from his eyes and waved his arm at the helmsman, now to ease her a little, again to haul up and thus thwart some ravening sea which threatened to stamp his ship under. Sailing-Master Ned Rackham was content to let the skipper con his own vessel ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Maeonia.—Ver. 583. Colonists were said to have proceeded from Lydia, or Maeonia, to the coasts of Etruria. Bacchus assumes the name of Acoetes, as corresponding to the Greek epithet akoites, 'watchful,' or 'sleepless;' which ought to be the characteristic of the careful 'pilot,' or 'helmsman.'] ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... after supper that night, and there was nobody except the helmsman on deck, when Miss Hamilton approached the forward scuttle where Nasmyth sat with his pipe in his hand. Nasmyth rose and spread out an old sail for her, and she sat down a little apart from him. The Tillicum was steaming northwards at a leisurely six knots, with her mastheads ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... of those miserable males Who sniff at vice and, daring not to snap, Do therefore hope for heaven. I take the hap Of all my deeds. The wind that fills my sails Propels; but I am helmsman. Am I wrecked, I know the devil has sufficient weight To bear: I lay it not on him, or fate. Besides, he's damned. That man I do suspect A coward, who would burden the poor deuce With what ensues from his own slipperiness. I have just found a wanton-scented tress In an old desk, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... shouted an order to "Stand by!" immediately followed by a command to the helmsman to "Hard a-starboard!" and presently there occurred a gentle shock—showing that the brig had collided with something apparently on the rounding of her starboard bow—accompanied by a most outrageous clamour, in which "S-a-c-r-es" and other French ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... Family rounded the point, she seemed to feel that she was safe at home. Captain Worse winked at the helmsman, and declared that the old thing knew well enough where she was now ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... in this hot sun; but I shall go through with it as a duty." To his friend Mr. Young he makes humorous reference to his awkwardness in nautical language: "My great difficulty is calling out 'starboard' when I mean 'port,' and feeling crusty when I see the helmsman putting the ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... flash the skipper swung on his heel. As he turned he caught sight of the cook at his galley door; his eyes next fell upon the motionless figure of the helmsman; with the one motion he shoved his head through the deckhouse window and swept a keen searching look around the interior. It was ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... helmsman, steered them to the shore under the crags of Pelion; and they went up through the dark pine forests toward ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... glasses to the man at wheel. He was crouching down over the spokes in a helpless, huddled sort of way, and even as I looked the vessel veered again, abruptly as before. I saw the helmsman straighten up and bring the wheel about ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... she carried no light, and that even the binnacle was carefully shaded so that its light could not be seen except by the helmsman. At midnight his watch went on deck, and Ralph perceived that while he had been below the sail had again been greatly reduced, and noticed that from time to time the officer on watch swept the horizon with his night-glass. He apparently observed nothing until about two o'clock, ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... be helmsman, because he was a star-gazer and knew the points of the compass. Lynceus, on account of his sharp sight, was stationed as a lookout in the prow, where he saw a whole day's sail ahead, but was rather apt to overlook things that lay directly under his nose. If the sea only happened ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... sped on, above the black and heaving sea—on, on—until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations: but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... made fast, as his father cast off and took the tiller, and the roar of the sea all round me as we sailed from the lee of the quay at first filled me with fear, but soon I felt the skiff rise to the first sea, and I forgot my terror in watching the helmsman. ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... would all travel with few lights, simple lanterns at the prow, as warning to the one just ahead, and another one at the stern, to point out the route to the ship following. These faint lights could scarcely be seen. Oftentimes the helmsman would suddenly have to turn his course and demand slackened speed behind, seeing the silhouette of the boat ahead looming up in the darkness. A few moments of carelessness and it would come in on the prow with a deadly ram. Upon slowing down, the captain always ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... dawn. But the dawn brought no relief. The wind howled on like a fierce wild beast roaring for its prey. I had made my way every day upstairs, and by dint of holding on, and with a chair tied with strong ropes, had contrived to sit on deck. But this day I retreated under cover behind the helmsman, when, lo! a large wave burst over the ship, found me out in my retreat, and nearly throwing down several stout sailors in its way, gave me the most complete salt-water bath I have had since I left New York. All that night we were tossed about ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... longing for what might be beyond; for when we had passed under the piers of the bridge, the estuary broadened into the harbor and the open sea. Then somebody on board would tell a story of children who had drifted away beyond the harbor-bar and the light-house, and were drowned; and our boyish helmsman would begin to look grave and anxious, and would turn his boat and row us back swiftly to the safe gundalow and ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... wrecks at those places where the structure of the coast permits the rescue of men and a distribution of the wreck if it be of wood, but some trash are now of iron. And I am now as parched in the hide as I was that time in Naples when the helmsman sailed the brig on to the pier-head because a hurricane had risen, and Skipper Worse and I stood on the quay and cried, though he swore mostly, and I had a basket on my arm with something that they called bananas, which they fry in butter. And it is not very nice ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... to the highest parts of the mast; these bellowing and pulling certain cordages in cadence; those crying, swearing, whistling, and filling the air with barbarous and unknown sounds. The officer on duty, in his turn, roaring out these words, starboard! larboard! hoist! luff! tack! which the helmsman repeated in the same tone. All this hubbub, however, produced its effect: the yards were turned on their pivots, the sails set, the cordage tightened, and the unfortunate sea-boys having received their lesson, descended to the deck. Every thing remained tranquil, except that the waves still ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... past the three vessels of war, giving them so wide a berth as to avoid all danger from their batteries. As soon as this was done, and the Dawn was travelling her road at a good rate, I beckoned to Marble to come near the wheel, for I had taken the helmsman's duty on myself for an hour or two: in other words, I was doing that which, from my boyish experience on the Hudson, I had once fancied it was not only the duty, but the pleasure, of every ship-master to do, viz: steering! Little did I understand, before practice taught me ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... for improving her sailing qualities. But his great delight was to get into a small decked boat, belonging to the Dock-yard, and taking only Menzikoff, and three or four others of his suite, to work the vessel with them, he being the helmsman; by this practice he said he should be able to teach them how to command ships when they got home. Having finished their day's work, they used to resort to a public-house in Great Tower-street, close to Tower Hill, to smoke their pipes and drink beer and brandy. The landlord ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... crossing a bar is, that the helmsman either loses his head and permits the boat to present her broadside to the surf, or that the steering power is not sufficient to keep her head straight. Neither of these misfortunes befell us in entering the Macalister, for, from the hour we had selected, the sea was ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... more insolent than before. Indeed, just a week after the President signed the non-importation bill, as one of our coasting vessels was entering the harbor of New York, a British vessel, wishing to stop and search her, fired a shot which struck the helmsman and killed ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... not through base blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory. Scorning a turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller; and that tiller was in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow lower jaw of her hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered by that tiller in a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... reflections from a tarnished mirror, and then fade back into the depths of cloudy dissolution. Still it was growing lighter, and the man who was on the outlook became less anxious in his forward gaze, and less frequent in his calls to the helmsman. I was lying half over the gunwale, looking into the strange-coloured water, blue dimmed with undissolved white, when a cry from Charles made me start and look up. It was indeed a God-like vision. The mist yet rolled thick below, but away up, far away and ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... death-ship keeps her track While the ships of men sail on, For God is her skipper and helmsman, too, ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... anchor at this point. It tended however somewhat to abate these suspicions—that, by the flashes of the lanthorns, as they played unsteadily upon the guns, anchors, and tackling of the vessel, he could distinguish the lilies of France: and upon inquiry from the helmsman, who spoke to him however in English, he learned that he was on board a French corvette—Les trois ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... sea-watch, Home's hearth-light Shines round the helmsman plunging through the night; And still, with inward eye, the traveller sees In close, dark, stranger ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... this work to be done. Unlike his father, he was willing to do anything which would afford him a fair compensation, and in his five years of active life on the lake he had been a pilot, a deck-hand, a waiter, and a kitchen assistant on board steamers, and a sailor, helmsman, and cook on board other craft. He picked up considerable money, for a boy, by his enterprise, which, like a good son with a clear apprehension of domestic circumstances, he gave to his mother. At the ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... Their helmsman, who stood with the tiller between his legs, with his hands crossed and hid in his "Bosom," was a picture in himself. A low cap covered a head of shaggy reddish hair, while his thick straggly beard was of the same hue. His upper man was clothed in a coarse ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... a larger force, he sailed against him ahead of all the rest, in a Rhodian galley of five banks which was commanded by Demagoras, a man well affected to the Romans, and exceedingly skilful in naval battles. Neoptolemus came against him at a great rate, and ordered the helmsman to steer the ship right against the vessel of Lucullus; but Demagoras, fearing the weight of the king's vessel and the rough brass that she was fitted with, did not venture to engage head to head, but he quickly turned his ship round and ordered them ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... all about everything—the name of every sail, of every rope. She stood near the helmsman, a slim graceful figure in a white gown of some soft material, with never a jewel or a flower to relieve that statuesque simplicity. She wore no hat, and the rich chesnut hair was rolled in a loose knot at the back of the small Greek-looking head. Montesma came to her ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... out our junk, we employed a Spaniard, called Damian Marina, the same person who thought to have gone with you in company with George Peterson. This Damian was a good helmsman, and was therefore employed by us, and another Spaniard, named Juan de Lievana, went with them as passenger. The junk however lost her voyage, and they returned to Nangasaki, where the carrak of Macao soon afterwards arrived. Understanding ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... passed off well; they were more civil and less strict in their examination than in England. The Russian sailors look very unbright; they are not active in managing a boat. They not unfrequently received a few strokes from the fist of the helmsman, or a rope's-end, either of which they took with that unconcerned composure which showed they were accustomed to it. We are located at the hotel of H. Spink, an intelligent Yorkshireman; his wife is very ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... he, "this 'ere is not a practice, as you know, I often is guilty of; but you bein' a keerful hand and a stiddy helmsman, and port here close aboard, I've no objections to take a toss with ye." Then pouring out a moderate quantity of the fluid, the mate handed it to Ben, who, taking the pipe out of his mouth, and with one hand on the king-spoke of the wheel and one eye at the compass-card, threw his head back ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... meres I find a magic bark; I leap on board; no helmsman steers: I float till all is dark. A gentle sound, an awful light! Three angels bear the holy Grail; With folded feet, in stoles of white, On sleeping wings they sail. Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! My spirit beats her ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... sweet and low as an elfland horn, the lightship's chime whistle. It was dead ahead, which was not exactly to his calculation. The tide set had served stronger than he had reckoned. He ordered the helmsman to ease her off a half-point, in order to make safe offing for the turn ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... a great crisis are not required—are impediments—in common times; A Lord Liverpool is better in everyday politics than a Chatham—a Louis Philippe far better than a Napoleon. By the structure of the world we often want, at the sudden occurrence of a grave tempest, to change the helmsman—to replace the pilot of the calm by the pilot of the storm. In England we have had so few catastrophes since our Constitution attained maturity, that we hardly appreciate this latent excellence. We have not needed a Cavour to rule a revolution—a representative man above ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... extemporized in Cape journals of late. There, in an ingeniously pretended dissertation, it is invented how ill founded the aspersions are against Mr. Premier Schreiner, and that the acts, upon which he was so wrongly suspected as an amphibious helmsman, are really attributable to another person—by the way, to one at a safe distance, viz., to Mr. F.W. Reitz, the Transvaal State Secretary; whilst this gentleman again, when lecturing at Johannesburg in July last, naively deplored ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... was a good sailor for his years, and two Boston boys just from the public schools. The carpenter sometimes mustered in the starboard watch, and was an old sea-dog, a Swede by birth, and accounted the best helmsman in the ship. This was our ship's company, beside cook and steward, who were blacks, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... "'I can't see any helmsman,' said Alice, 'those people must be asleep or crazy. Give them a hail through the megaphone. Perhaps you ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... fell the three men had seized the captain; but he fought with so much strength and fury that they found it difficult to hold him. The helmsman steadied the tiller with two turns of the rope and ran forward to assist them. They laid Blogg flat on the deck, but he kept struggling, cursing, threatening, and calling on the mate to help him; but that officer took fright, ran to ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... for the brig had not motion enough to give her steerage-way. This time Captain 'Siah listened longer than usual. From far away to seaward, between the peals of thunder, came a confused, roaring sound. At the same time a slight puff of air swelled the sails of the brig, and the helmsman threw over the wheel to meet her, as the vessel began to move ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... to be called so, but the helmsman was yet perceived by the sailor's experienced eyes, and he grappled the gunwale firmer, and, preparing to swing himself on ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... the ocean, and his lightly held skeptical view of life, made his company as full of flavor on ship as it was on shore. He didn't know anything more about the weather than the Weather Bureau knows, yet the helmsman of the yacht used to consult him about the appearances of the sky and a change of wind with a confidence in his opinion that he gave to no one else on board. And Mavick never forfeited this respect by being too positive. It was so with everything; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... hurled her old timbers along under close-reefed maintopsail, and a rag of a foresail only. The captain had housed topgallant masts and lashed his guns inboard; yet she rolled so that you would not have trusted a cat on her storm-washed decks. They were desolate but for the captain and helmsman on the poop; the helmsman, a mere lad—the one, in fact, who had pulled the bow-oar to our rescue—lashed and gripping the spokes pluckily, but with a white face which told that, though his eyes were strained on the binnacle, his mind ran on the infernal seas astern. Over ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the western horizon as we weighed anchor, and with colors flying and whistle sounding, steamed slowly towards the majestic bay which expands its broad bosom before the city of Charleston. The pilot, dressed in navy blue, stood at the window of the pilot-house, guiding the helmsman and announcing the various points ...
— The Flag Replaced on Sumter - A Personal Narrative • William A. Spicer
... I looked back with pity at the 'Detroit's' crew. She hadn't any wheel house, and the helmsman was due to get all the attention that was comin' to him. They'd built up a barricade of potato sacks, chicken coops and bic-a-brac around the wheel that protected 'em somewhat, but even while I watched, some ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... wheel. The screws ground the water astern into foam, the black shape leapt forward and sped away eastward into the glimmering dawn with its silent passenger lying in the swinging boat, and the unseen watchers standing by the helmsman.... ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... say, 'Twere better than that brow to face that I were leagues away. But no, not so! what fears should daunt,—for what welcomes e'er outran The welcome that I bring with me, my call from God and man? Nor vain my trust! my helmsman, He who sent me, now is steering, And, by His power, the wave-worn craft the shore in calm is nearing, And scarce my foot was on the beach when two hundred echoes spake Their welcome, and a hundred ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the ships landward apace. There for two nights and two days we lay continually, consuming our hearts with weariness and sorrow. But when the fair-tressed Dawn had at last brought the full light of the third day, we set up the masts and hoisted the white sails and sat us down, while the wind and the helmsman guided the ships. And now I should have come to mine own country all unhurt, but the wave and the stream of the sea and the North Wind swept me from my course as I was doubling Malea, and drave me wandering ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... No terror pales the helmsman's cheek, Or clouds his dauntless eye, As, in a sailor's measured tone, His voice responds, "Ay! ay!" Three hundred souls, the steamer's freight, Crowd forward wild with fear, While at the stern the dreaded flames Above ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... coat, up with the collar, and forward to the wheel on tiptoe.) As soon as I was up to the engine-room skylight (that is to say, well ahead of the cabin roof) I assumed a natural step, went up to the pulpit and touched the helmsman on the arm, as I had seen Grimm do. The man stepped aside, grunting something about a light, and I took the wheel from him. Grimm was a man of few words, so I just jogged his satellite, and pointed forward. He went off like a lamb to his customary place ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... stream Of ocean sleeps around those foamless isles, When the young moon is westering as now, And evening airs wander upon the wave; And, when the pines of that bee-pasturing isle, Green Erebinthus, quench the fiery shadow Of his gilt prow within the sapphire water, Then must the lonely helmsman cry aloud 'Ahasuerus!' and the caverns round Will answer 'Ahasuerus!' If his prayer Be granted, a faint meteor will arise, Lighting him over Marmora; and a wind Will rush out of the sighing pine-forest, ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... (EPIBATi), men trained to fight in hoplite's armor and to repel boarders. The Persian ships at Salamis carried 30 such warriors, and often various Greek admirals have crowded their decks with these heavy marines; but the true Athenian sea warrior disdains them. Given a good helmsman and well-trained rowers, and you can sink your opponent with your ram, while he is clumsily trying to board you. Expert opinion considers the EPIBATi somewhat superfluous, and their use in most naval battles ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... sailors' sight her loosened looks Seemed like the jagged storm-rack, and her feet Only the spume that floats on hidden rocks, And, marking how the rising waters beat Against the rolling ship, the pilot cried To the young helmsman at the stern to luff ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... myself, with all the speed I could accomplish, to the stern. There sat the helmsman at his post, but asleep or insensible. I shook him, but he gave no signs of life. I shouted with what little strength I had, but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... the more treacherous for their apparent calmness; for as we passed through them we could with difficulty keep the head of our small canoe in the direction of our leader. The Indians plied their paddles with redoubled vigour, while the helmsman of John's canoe every now and then gave vent to loud, wild shrieks. Isoro sat calmly clenching his teeth, and looking out eagerly ahead. The large canoe went gliding on. And now we saw her passing between two rocks, over which the water dashing formed an arch of spray, almost ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... out, when he suddenly espied some rocks towards which the frigate was steering. There was no time for communication, and, without hesitating an instant, he cried out in true nautical style: "H-a-r-d up, h-a-r-d up." "H-a-r-d up it is," replied the helmsman. "H-a-r-d up," repeated Savery in a louder key. "Gently, young man," said the captain, who was standing forward. The ship fortunately bore away just in time to clear the rocks, and was thus saved by the prompt interference of her passenger. We have often heard him in ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... and thought of these things, Petrak came up from the fore-deck and stood at the foot of the ladder leading to the bridge, where I could hear Captain Riggs pacing to and fro and speaking through the trap to the helmsman about ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... ran down the plank and deposited the boatswain's jacket and his bundle in the helmsman's closet, then made his way back and took hold of the incoming freight ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... guns; the vast hull drifted with the tide out of the bay, and after many hours its crew of landsmen contrived to spread a great part of her enormous canvass—the wind took it, and while a thousand mistakes of the helmsman made her present her head now to one point, and now to another, the vast fields of canvass that formed her sails flapped with a sound like that of a huge cataract; or such as a sea-like forest may give forth when buffeted by an equinoctial north-wind. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... the Jane schooner, commanded by Captain Thomas Johnson. While on a voyage from Gibraltar to Brazil with a valuable cargo, Gautier and the mate killed the captain and the helmsman and steered the vessel to Scotland, sinking her near Stornoway. Caught and tried at Edinburgh in November, 1821, found guilty, and hanged in January on the sands of Leith, his body being publicly dissected afterwards by the Professor of Anatomy to Edinburgh University. The age ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... of falling in with them. I was in the gig with the master, and, that being the best running boat, we soon came up with one of the feluccas. We fired musketry at her: but having a light breeze, she would not bring-to. We then took good aim at the helmsman, and hit him. The man only shifted the helm from his right hand to his left, and kept on his course. We still kept firing at this intrepid fellow, and I felt it was like wilful murder, since he made no resistance, but ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... amongst the tributaries of the Amazons. It is navigable, however, by sailing vessels only for about 160 miles above Santarem. The hiring of men to navigate the vessel was our greatest trouble. Jose was to be my helmsman, and we thought three other hands would be the fewest with which we could venture. But all our endeavours to procure these were fruitless. Santarem is worse provided with Indian canoemen than any other town on the river. I found on applying to the tradesmen to ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... bridge across the dark and bid the helmsman have a care, The flash that wheeling inland wakes his sleeping wife to prayer; From our vexed eyries, head to gale, we bind in burning chains The lover from the sea-rim drawn — ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... him straightway, put him on board their ship exultingly; for they thought him the son of heaven-nurtured kings. They sought to bind him with rude bonds, but the bonds would not hold him, and the withes fell far away from his hands and feet: and he sat with a smile in his dark eyes. Then the helmsman understood all and cried out at once to ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... Briggs!"—The master spoke as the captain speaks to the helmsman, when there are rocks foaming at the lips, right ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... girl down the companionway leading to the engine-room, and then I raised my pistol and fired my first shot at a boche. What happened in the next few seconds happened so quickly that details are rather blurred in my memory. I saw the helmsman lunge forward upon the wheel, pulling the helm around so that the tug sheered off quickly from her course, and I recall realizing that all our efforts were to be in vain, because of all the men aboard, Fate had decreed that this ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... pilot is quite chivalrous, as far as you are concerned, for I marked his glance, Miss Harz," said Miss Lamarque, archly, as we turned our faces cabin-ward, under the protection of our helmsman's promised vigilance. "See what it is to be young and pretty, and remark the truth of the old proverb, as exemplified in his case, that 'extremes meet.' Victoria herself is not more independent of me or my ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... Meantime the helmsman, anxious to know what the row was about, had let go the wheel, and, bent double, ran with long, stealthy footsteps to the break of the poop. The Narcissus, left to herself, came up gently in to the wind without any one being aware of it. ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... before, I anxiously watched the horizon for their appearance. For several days, however, I was doomed to disappointment, and gave it up in despair; but a day or two after, when in the vicinity of the Tuscarawas river, it being about noon, the helmsman suddenly called out, "A field of pigeons." This announcement called all hands to the promenade deck of the packet. Looking in the direction indicated, a heavy black cloud appeared in the far horizon; this seemed to extend from right to left, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... it promised to shield them from the observation of the savages, contributed greatly to perplex their movements; for such was the abruptness with which the river wound itself round in various directions, that it required a man constantly on the alert at the bows to apprise the helmsman of the course he should steer, to avoid collision with the shores. Canopies of weaving branches met in various directions far above their heads, and through these the schooner glided with a silence that might have called up the idea of a Stygian freight. Meanwhile, the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... in the sand- bank. He stood at the stern of the ship, looking fixedly toward the rock, his arms folded, and his thoughts all absorbed in that one thing. A low railing ran round the quarter-deck. The helmsman stood in a sheltered place which rose only two feet above the deck. The captain stood by the companion-way, looking south at the storm; the mate was near the capstan, and all were intent and absorbed in their expectation of ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... helmsman! you guide the immortal; Many a wreck is beneath you piled, Many a brave yet unwary sailor Over these waters ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... course from Candia, and four seamen are lost off the lee main-yardarm. A fearful storm greatly distresses the vessel and the captain gives command "to bear away." As she passes the island of St. George, the helmsman is struck blind by lightning. Bowsprit, foremast, and main-topmast being carried away, the officers try to save themselves on the wreck of the foremast. The ship splits on the projecting verge of Cape Colonna. The captain and all his crew are lost except Arion (Falconer), who is ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... it," replied the helmsman, as he noted the figures on the barograph. "But you see, to stand a chance for the prize you've got to start from New York, and that's where we're headed for now. We've got to go to the big town first, and then we'll hit the ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... entered—where no Scythian spoil he found, But one fair face, the Scythian's sometime prey, A lady's whom their ships had borne away By force of warlike hand from German ground, A bride and queen by violent power fast bound To the errant helmsman of their fierce array. And her, left lordless by that ended fray, Our lord beholding loved, and hailed, ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... began to make the best of his way towards the outlet. Favored by an increase in the wind, the progress of the ark was such as to promise the complete success of this plan, though the crab-like movement of the craft compelled the helmsman to keep its head looking in a direction very different from that in which it was ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... there."[522] Before he had done much toward exploring this paradise, a sudden and grave mishap quite altered his plans. On Christmas morning, between midnight and dawn, owing to careless disobedience of orders on the part of the helmsman, the flag-ship struck upon a sand-bank near the present site of Port au Paix. All attempts to get her afloat were unavailing, and the waves ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... Camphor there is a lake called 'Lotus-water,' and therein a Swan-Royal, named 'Silver-sides,' had his residence. The birds of the marsh and the mere had elected him King, in full council of all the fowls—for a people with no ruler is like a ship that is without a helmsman. One day King Silver-sides, with his courtiers, was quietly reposing on a couch of well-spread lotus-blossoms, when a Crane, named 'Long-bill,' who had just arrived from foreign parts, entered the presence with an ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... biscuit-worms, And round and round it flew: The Ice did split with a Thunder-fit; The Helmsman ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... you to stay on the forecastle, Mr. Percy?" asked Christy, when his companion came to the wheel on the opposite side from the helmsman. ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... fell from off him as withered leaves fall from off trees in autumn, and a careless smile played on his face as he sat down and looked calmly on the robbers who stood before him. Then on a sudden the voice of the helmsman was heard, as he shouted, "Fools, what do ye? The wrath of Zeus is hurrying you to your doom. This youth is not of mortal race; and who can tell which of the undying gods has put on this beautiful form? Send him straightway from the ship in peace, if ye fear ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... our last tack, and very soon were close up at the island. After some cruising we selected an eligible creek for landing, into which Hall ran our boat as neatly as the most experienced helmsman in Her Majesty's Navy. ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... a cruel enemy; yet if there was a prospect of winning something for Austria by a French alliance, considerations of sentiment could not be allowed to stand in the way. A statesman who, like Count Stadion, had identified the interests of Austria with the liberation of Germany, was no fitting helmsman for the State in the shifting course that now lay before it. A diplomatist was called to power who had hitherto by Napoleon's own desire represented the Austrian State at Paris. Count Metternich, the new Chief Minister, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... middle surrounded by birches. Bill, the second raftsman, a stolid, silent man, at once swung his axe upon a log of driftwood. Mr. Wells and Jim walked to and fro under the birches, and Kate and Nell sat on the grass watching with great interest the old helmsman as he came up from the river, his brown hands and face shining from the scrubbing he had given them. Soon he had a fire cheerfully blazing, and after laying out the few utensils, he ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... catch the gale Round veered the flapping sail, Death! was the helmsman's hail; Death without quarter! Mid-ships with iron keel Struck we her ribs of steel; Down her black hulk did ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... at the helmsman who stood at the radiant circle of wheel staring with open mouth and eyebrows arched into his hair. The captain, stepping close to Major Hood, said in a low, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... ship found herself on her own element again; shook herself proudly, we cannot doubt, nodded joyfully across to the "Intrepid," and was free. But alas! there was no master to take latitude and longitude, no helmsman at the wheel. In clear letters cast in brass over her helm there are these words, "England expects each man to do his duty." But here is no man to heed the warning, and the rudder flaps this way and that way, no longer directing her course, but stupidly swinging to and fro. And ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... will come and look upon me with kindness." So she died, and all was done as she desired; for they set her, looking as fair as a lily, in a barge all hung with black, and an old dumb man went with her as helmsman. ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... coast-line, gone were rock and wood and sand; Grimly anxious stood the helmsman with the tiller in his hand, And questioned of the darkness what was sea and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Pilot in the dreadful hour When a great nation, like a ship at sea With the wroth breakers whitening at her lee, Feels her last shudder if her helmsman cower; A godlike manhood be his mighty dower! Such and so gifted, Lincoln, may'st thou be With thy high wisdom's low simplicity And awful tenderness of voted power. From our hot records then thy name shall stand On Time's calm ledger out of passionate days— ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... a thundering noise as of an avalanche descending, it overwhelms you. Of course the ship's way is deadened; she seems like a living thing overburdened, yet struggling to be free; and well it is for all hands if the helmsman be able to keep his post and his wits about him. For if he be hurt, or have fled from the terrible wave, it is an even chance that she "broaches to;" that is to say, swings round broadside on to the next great wave that follows relentlessly ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... keep the deck, though the helmsman had to be lashed to the wheel. I think he never cared to see land again, but he was full of spirits and life. He said this was weather fit ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... long voyages to the other end of the world and back with wonderful regularity, but though the helmsman has a compass to guide him, they do not arrive in port so exactly at their appointed time as the little swallow, who has only the sense which we call "instinct" to guide it; only its own light, strong wings to carry it on its swift way, flying a mile a minute—for ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... Thou wert helmsman and chief, Wilt thou turn in an hour, Thy limbs to the leaf, Thy face to the flower, Thy blood to the water, thy soul to the gods ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... capacity of skipper of the Betsey. With the prospect of the services of the Sabbath before him, and after working all Saturday to boot, it was rather hard to set him down to a midnight spell at the helm, but he could not be wanted at such a time, as we had no other such helmsman aboard. The gale, thickened with rain, came down, shrieking like a maniac, from off the peaked hills of Rum, striking away the tops of the long ridgy billows that had risen in the calm to indicate its approach, and then carrying them in sheets of spray aslant the furrowed surface, like snow-drift ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... royal pleasure to work her ahead through difficult ice. She twisted and turned "like a ball on a platter." No channel between the floes so winding and awkward but she could get through it. But it is hard work for the helmsman. "Hard astarboard! Hard aport! Steady! Hard astarboard again!" goes on incessantly without so much as a breathing-space. And he rattles the wheel round, the sweat pours off him, and round it goes again ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... Brian, kicking them to their feet, for the seas were sweeping over the counter. The helmsman groaned and bade him desist, and almost at the same instant their mast crashed over the bow, breaking the back of one seaman, and the ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... north they sailed under the guidance of a wise helmsman who knew all languages and the speech of birds and beasts. But the Finnish sorcerers raised storms against the ship, and they were driven along for seven days and nights, till a coast rose before them which the helmsman ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... the green and red starboard and port lamps and lights in wardroom and galley went out and men hurried along the deck placing tarpaulins over the engine room gratings. Only the binnacle lights remained and these were muffled with just a crack for the helmsman to ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... for there is no one among my men who thoroughly understands a helmsman's duty, and I must give myself more rest, I ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... heard Gerard laughing heartily, and pointing to a boat which was proceeding up the stream. In the fore-part was a thatched shed, on either side of which sat four natives paddling. In the after-part was another shed of bamboo and grass, under which sat the passengers. On the top of all was the helmsman—a naked savage, lying his full length, and steering with his feet, under a sun which would quickly have cooked a beef-steak exposed to it. Mr Robarts told us that the boat or canoe was called an egaritea, and that it was the canoe usually employed for the ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... blasted air struck him sprawling into the bottom of the boat; the listener was hammered almost to numbness by the deafening thunder that battered and tore through the still air. At top speed the helmsman drove for the shelter of a hidden cove. They made it an instant before the great waves struck high upon the sand spit. Over the bay hung a ballooning cloud of black and gray—lifting for an instant to show in stark ghastliness the wreckage, broken and twisted, that marked where the battleship ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... mate had intended; they, without doubt, having miscalculated our leeway. At this, I turned and sang out to the bo'sun that we were near to running upon the weed, and, in the same moment, he shouted to the helmsman to luff, and directly afterwards our starboard side was brushing against the great outlying tufts of the point, and so, for a breathless minute, we waited. Yet the ship drew clear, and so into the open water beyond the point; but I had seen something as we scraped against the ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... announcing the glory of the world to come. Clouds swept up the heavens and the fires burned lower, but no one noticed. Before them flashed the livid face and burning eyes of the preacher, and he moved them with his words as the helmsman ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... good one too," replied the master; "the best helmsman we had in the Calliope. You and he were very ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... the circumstance, Servadac turned his entire attention to the Dobryna, which, now little more than a mile from shore, could not fail to see and understand his signals. Slightly changing her course, she first struck her mainsail, and, in order to facilitate the movements of her helmsman, soon carried nothing but her two topsails, brigantine and jib. After rounding the peak, she steered direct for the channel to which Servadac by his gestures was pointing her, and was not long in entering the creek. As soon as the anchor, imbedded in the sandy bottom, ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne |
