"Porthole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... work to help run in and out of the porthole that amazing mass of metal, especially as the thing must be clone in a trice. Then, at the summons of a horrid, rasping rattle, swayed by the Captain in person, we were made to rush from our guns, seize pikes ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... An instinct warned him that to surrender to passion would be only to trap himself more deeply. The man blocking the door filled its breadth with his strong shoulders. Louis turned his head and his eyes caught through the open porthole a glimpse of the receding shore-line of the Riviera. Blanco followed the glance ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... thunder, men, we must do something or go for it. No use prying there; avast, I say with your handspikes, and run one of ye for a prayer book and a pen-knife, and cut the big chains. Knife? Aye, aye, cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter's heavy hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron, began slashing at the largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes, full of sparks, were given, when the exceeding strain effected the rest. With a terrific snap, every fastening went adrift; the ship righted, the carcase sank. Now, this occasional ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... romantic!" Bet thrilled as she looked at the old adobe wall fully ten feet high with small porthole openings at intervals. "And there are the tiny windows they used to shoot through at the Indians. I'd love to ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... in his hands, his broad shoulders bent forward in prayer. Clark's breath came a little quickly at the strangeness of it all and, moving on tip toe, he turned the handle softly. In his own cabin, he lay for an hour staring out of the porthole at the dim world beyond. He tried to think of the works, but they receded mysteriously beyond the interlocking branches of the neighboring pines. They seemed, somehow, less imposing than formerly, and Wimperley and Stoughton and the rest of them were a long way off. There ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... Johnny, grabbing at his stomach. "If the blamed shack would only stand still!" he groaned, gazing at the floor with strong disgust. "I don't reckon I've ever been so blamed sick in all my—" the sentence was unfinished, for the open porthole caught his eye and he leaped forward to ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... bare cabin, roughly wainscotted and exceedingly filthy. There were the grease-marks from the backs of heads all along a bulkhead above a wooden bench; the rough table, on which my arms rested, was covered with layers of tallow spots. Bright light shone through a porthole. Two or three ill-assorted muskets slanted about round the foot of the mast—a long old piece, of the time of Pizarro, all red velvet and silver' chasing, on a swivelled stand, three English fowling-pieces, and a coachman's blunderbuss. A man was rising from a mattress stretched ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... put his head out of a porthole and called out, "Look here, you may not care, but the cruel rocks are goring the sides of this boat like the horns of ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... little later would do, I told myself, because (owing to the fact that my ancestral castle had figured in Biddy's tales of long ago) I was annexed as one of the proteges; allowed to make a fifth at the small, flowery table under a desirable porthole in the green and white restaurant; also I was invited to go about with the ladies and show them Cairo. Just how much "going about," and falling in love, I should be able to do there, depended on "Antoun Effendi." But when Biddy congratulated me on my luck, and chance ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... frightened, startled look, in a few minutes, so comfortable had he fixed himself, but happening to look forward through the glass-covered porthole of the tower, he saw something that made the cold chills run down ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... worked furiously for a few minutes, and the Ithuriel sank until only three feet of her bulk appeared above the water. Then the Admiral felt the floor of the conning-tower shudder and tremble under his feet. He looked out of the side porthole on the starboard bow, and saw his own fleet dropping away into the distance and the darkness of the November night. The water ahead curled up into two huge swathes, which broke into foam and spray, which lashed hissing along ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... lay in the berth where it had been found, an upper berth with a porthole, had been washed and attended to by the stewardess. The lower berth had been used by the traveler for some of his clothes—they were still there, neatly folded. The dead man's trunk was on a sofa on the opposite side of the cabin, a sofa which could be made into a third berth ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... just hides the Pass from us. Well, the handful of men in the tower managed to keep in communication with the main force, and this is how it was done. A Sepoy called Prem Singh used to come out into full view of the enemy through a porthole of the tower, deliberately set up his apparatus, and heliograph away to the main force in the Malakand Camp, with the Swatis firing at him from short range. How it was he was not hit, I could never understand. He did it day after ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... four-legged stool. Hooks, empty, decorated the walls, and a small lamp dangled from the overhead beam. As I got to my feet I could feel a faint throb of the engine, and realized we were moving slowly through the water. The glass of the porthole was thick, but clear. I knelt on the berth, and looked out, dimly perceiving the shore-line slipping past, with an ever-broadening stretch of water intervening. Then I sat down helplessly on the stool, and waited for something to occur. Escape was impossible; I could only hope ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... through sheer exhaustion, and wakened some time after in darkness. The waves were hissing and slapping at the porthole; the second steward was cursing expertly in the linen closet, which happened to be opposite our stateroom; and somewhere people in good health were consuming viands, for cooking odors and the rattle ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... the restless tossing and stepped silently into the little stateroom, his young-old eyes fastened upon the wistful lines that marked the competent young face. While he stood brooding over his young master the dawn streaked through the open porthole, and a soft splash sounded from up forward as the ship dropped her roped anchor. They were ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... this stove goes out an' I'm freezin'," O'Malley growled. "I don't think we'll be goin' any place. Them brass hats meet at Operation Headquarters an' the generals call in Weather. Weather squints out through a porthole an' says, '6/10 cloud over target.' Then the generals up an' go back ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... listening-tank to a porthole, opened it and emptied the tank into the sea. "Good-bye!" he murmured as a faint ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... be, somehow, amongst all of them, a curious indisposition to discuss this matter. Suddenly Lenora, who was sitting on the lounge underneath the porthole, put out her hand and picked up a card which was lying by her side. She glanced at it, at ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was yielding. She had ceased to struggle. She was clasped in her husband's arms and already was turning willing and responsive lips to his, when her eyes fell upon the porthole, through which the distant lighthouse was sending her a message—it seemed like a message of love and encouragement. She saw the mighty shaft towering serenely above dark rocks and crashing waters, and watched it change with beautiful gradations of light into a rugged cross to which a woman was ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... that some of them suffered severely from the effects of the first broadside. Others, however, dashed alongside, with the expectation of carrying the privateer by boarding; but here, again, they were disappointed. Pistols and muskets flashed from every porthole, and boarding-pikes and cutlasses, wielded by strong hands, presented a CHEVAUX-DE-FRISE which the enemy could not overleap. The carnage was terrible; the contest lasted over half an hour, and resulted in the total defeat ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... to undress unless the storm should abate. He scrambled up, and thankfully flung himself, just as he was, on to his bunk. In the wild confusion of squeaking, straining planks, the thump of waves against the porthole, the demon-shrieks of infuriated wind, and the shouts and running to and fro of sailors overhead, it seemed impossible that any human being could sleep. Yet the creature overhead was mercifully quiet; and ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... appearance now forgotten, so the neighbourhood was bustling, sunless, and romantic. It was here that the town was most overbuilt; but the overbuilding has been all rooted out, and not only a free fairway left along the High Street with an open space on either side of the church, but a great porthole, knocked in the main line of the lands, gives an outlook to the north and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were issued on the boat with regard to lights at night. Every porthole was closed, and every precaution taken so that not a gleam of light could be seen. The men were warned that anyone who attempted to make a light would be shot on the spot. The fleet moved along in ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... came to myself, I knew by the lazy rocking of the vessel that it was once more afloat; I was lying on a bench beneath a porthole, and when I turned my head to see more particularly where I was, Mistress Lucy came towards me, ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... when under a fixed stare, he presently glanced about and his eyes fell on the porthole. He looked at the dim port for several seconds intently, as if he could not quite make out their faces. Madden frowned, jerked his head up and down in a ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... tone, might have reassured him, if he had not suspected a devilish irony. Even when Colonel John proceeded to direct one of the men to open a porthole and admit more air, he derived no comfort from the attention. But steady! Colonel ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... couldn't hear him. Skinny started up the atomic power plant, and we could see Stinky laughing fit to kill. It takes a couple of minutes for it to warm up, you know. So Stinky started throwing rocks to attract our attention, and Skinny was scared that he'd crack a porthole or something, so he threw the ...
— We Didn't Do Anything Wrong, Hardly • Roger Kuykendall
... I know. (She turns away from them and walks slowly to the bench on left. She lifts up one of the curtains and looks through a porthole; then utters an exclamation of joy.) Ah, water! Clear water! As far as I can see! How good it looks after all these months of ice! (She turns round to them, her face transfigured with joy.) Ah, now I must go upon deck ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... the tank so far had made no signs of complying with the German demand for surrender, bullets were still being rained upon the tractor. Hal now took a handkerchief from his pocket, put it on the end of his empty revolver, and poked it through the porthole. ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... it over to the porthole. The metal, he then saw, was a soft antique gold, wrought into a decoration of delicate spindles, with a border of filigree. The circlet was beautiful in itself, and astonishingly heavy. But what it chiefly did for Matthews was to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... heavily, much more than on the previous evening, and the grey light which came in through the porthole changed in tint with every movement according as the angle of the vessel's side turned the glass seawards or skywards. It was very cold—unaccountably so for the month of June. I turned my head and looked at the porthole, and saw to my surprise that it was wide open and hooked ...
— The Upper Berth • Francis Marion Crawford
... using both the Mrs. Markins when it was desirable as "illustrations." The five had reached this degree of intimacy by the time the Coromandel was nearing Port Said, and every day the hemispheres of sea and sky they watched through the porthole above the Norwegian ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... galleon a quarrel arose among the officers, who were furious at the ill result of the day's fighting. The captain struck the master gunner with a stick; the latter, a German, rushed below in a rage, thrust a burning fuse into a powder barrel, and sprang through a porthole into the sea. The whole of the deck was blown up, with two hundred sailors and soldiers; but the ship was so strongly built that she survived the shock, and her ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... all this unrest opened heavy eyes upon a tossing gray world and turned her head languidly toward the porthole. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... got to him, too. It may explain something. He and I were the last to leave. We went to the bunkroom, and he stopped in the middle of taking off his shirt. He stood there, looking out the porthole, and forgot I was there. I heard him reciting something, softly, under his breath, and I stepped a little closer. ...
— The Stoker and the Stars • Algirdas Jonas Budrys (AKA John A. Sentry)
... the process of coaling, every porthole and doorway closed, and heavy canvas hung to protect as far as possible the clean decks. Two barges were moored alongside. Two blazing braziers lighted them with weird red and flickering flames. In their depths, cast in black and red shadows, toiled half-guessed figures; from their ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... Mart's porthole was open that night, as usual. He woke up suddenly to find the setting moon streaming in across his face, and got up to hang a towel across the open port, in order not to exclude the fresh air. As he did so, he heard the ship's ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... started to examine the grooved roads. At least I think this was so, since now for the first time I observed a kind of little window in its rocky face. It stood about five feet from its floor level, and was perhaps ten inches square, not more. In short, except for its shape it resembled a ship's porthole rather than a window. Its substance appeared to be talc, or some such material, and inches thick, yet through it, after Oro had cast aside some sort of covering, came a glare like that of a search-light. ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... a Roman-nosed lady, with an imperious manner, and a Colonel-subduing way of curling her lip. On my left was the funny man. As usual he was of a sea-green colour, and might be expected at any moment to stagger to a porthole and call faintly for the steward. Further down the table sat two young nincompoops, brought on board specially in order that they might fulfil their destiny, and fill out my story, by falling in love with the fluffy-haired English ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... lashing the rocks, and yet the invaders might have succeeded but for a piece of rashness. A hundred men had gained the shore when, with the thoughtlessness of schoolboys, they uttered a jubilant yell. {219} Instantly, porthole, platform, gallery, belched death through the darkness. The story is told that a raw New England lad was in the act of climbing the French flagstaff to hang out his own red coat as English flag when ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... along the deck, who hadn't been touched by the epidemic of seasickness, stopped to peer in at the porthole. They had mischief in their eyes, and as they caught sight of Slim's humorously pathetic countenance, one of them muttered in a low but distinct voice: "How'd you like to have some fried sausage, and some plum pudding, ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... tower beside Mercer, I watched the sea rise at an angle to meet us, and I dodged instinctively as the first green wave pelted against the thick porthole through which I was looking. An instant later the water closed over the top of the conning tower, and at a gentle angle we nosed towards the bottom ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... Japanese wives of four of his fellow officers, who peep at their flitting husbands through the curtains of their sampans. But when he is far out on the great Yellow Sea he throws the faded lotus flowers which she had given him through the porthole of his cabin, making his best excuses for "giving to them, natives of Japan, a grave so solemn and so vast"; and he utters a prayer: "O Ama-Terace-Omi-Kami, wash me clean from this little marriage of mine in the waters of the river ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... few years there stood on Liberty Street, south of the Middle Dutch Church, a dark, stone building, with small, deep porthole looking windows, rising tier above tier; exhibiting a dungeon-like aspect. It was five stories high, and each story was ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... morning of the eighth day—it was Palm Sunday—the mountainous cliffs of Tristan could dimly be discerned. My husband had gone up on deck two or three times while it was yet dusk to see if land was visible; while I kept looking out of the porthole, although it was not a very large outlook. At about four o'clock he dressed and wrote several letters. At six o'clock, accompanied by Rob, I went on to the lower deck and could see Tristan enshrouded in mist. At about nine o'clock we arrived opposite the settlement. A high ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... undertaken men crowded to enlist, just as freely from the Mississippi Valley as from the seaboard, and for the first time since the Spanish War the ships put to sea overmanned—and by as stalwart a set of men-of-war's men as ever looked through a porthole, game for a fight or a frolic, but withal so self-respecting and with such a sense of responsibility that in all the ports in which they landed their conduct was exemplary. The fleet practiced incessantly during ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... it, all sense of the beauty of the night, the beauty of the ship's lines, and the beauty of her lights,—and all these taken in themselves were intensely beautiful,—that thing was the awful angle made by the level of the sea with the rows of porthole lights along her side in dotted lines, row above row. The sea level and the rows of lights should have been parallel—should never have met—and now they met at an angle inside the black hull of the ship. There was nothing else to indicate she ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... the Falcon's gunwale and looked through an open porthole into the vessel's after cabin. I saw there a man seated at a table, with his ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... only with reversed muskets: they have made a white flag of napkins; go beating the chamade, or seeming to beat, for one can hear nothing. The very Swiss at the Portcullis look weary of firing; disheartened in the fire-deluge: a porthole at the drawbridge is opened, as by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard, the shifty man! On his plank, swinging over the abyss of that stone-Ditch; plank resting on parapet, balanced by weight of Patriots,—he ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... swung to and the dropped bar secured them. Only then did the watchmen discover that one woman had been shut out. She was a young woman nearing her twenties and, if legend has reported her truly, "Bonnie Kate Sherrill" was a beauty. Through a porthole Sevier saw her running towards the shut gates, dodging and darting, her brown hair blowing from the wind of her race for life—and offering far too rich a prize to the yelling fiends who dashed after her. Sevier coolly shot ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... we had a pretty quiet trip across, and I'm not saying that we didn't, because for the first three days I was so busy holding myself in my berth that I couldn't get a chance to look out the porthole to see for myself. I reckon there isn't anything alive that can beat me at being seasick, unless it's a camel, and ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... Isles the sides had been strained and had opened; and, as the plating in those days was not of sheet iron, the vessel had sprung a leak. A violent equinoctial gale had come up, which had first staved in a grating and a porthole on the larboard side, and damaged the foretop-gallant-shrouds; in consequence of these injuries, the Orion had run ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... pushed a small button on his desk and in a moment a gray disc before him glowed dimly, then flashed into life and full, natural color. As though looking through a glass porthole, Taj Lamor saw the interior of the Communications Room. The Communications Officer was gazing at a similar disc in ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... said the man, turning round and suddenly flashing a dark lantern full on the stern face of the prisoner, "you and I will have a little convarse together—by yer leave or without yer leave. In case there might be pryin' eyes about, I've closed the porthole, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... that was to come. It pierced a vista in the jungle of coco palms on the narrow key, colored purple the white side of the Paradise Gardens Colony excursion boat Swastika, which lay at the tiny wharf on the key's western shore, and splashed without warning into an open porthole well aft. ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... and the passage was good until I came alongside the quartermaster's shack, then the sea got rough. The porthole was battened down, and I had to cast it loose. When I got aboard, I could hear the wind blowing through the rigging of the supercargo (quartermaster sergeant snoring), so I was safe. I set my course ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... a little murmur of assent. The four men were seated together in the wonderfully decorated saloon of what was, beyond doubt, a most luxurious yacht. Through the open porthole were visible, every few moments, as the yacht rose and sank on the swell, the long line of lights which fringed the shore between Monte Carlo and Mentone; the mountains beyond, with tiny lights flickering like spangles in a black mantle of darkness; and further round still, the stream ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fast. The colonel was annoyed. He opened the door, and four tall figures, with strongly Semitic features and bearded like the pard, stood up and saluted. The colonel made a mental note of the closed door; he looked at the porthole—it was also closed. The Pathan loves a good "fug," especially in a European winter, and the colonel had had trouble with his patients about ventilation. A kind of guerilla warfare, conducted with much plausibility and perfect politeness, had been going on for some days between him and the ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... green reflection of the water and the red light of the sky shot alternately through the porthole and lit up the berth like firelight flashing in a ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... sprang to his feet and escorted the young lady from the saloon. He glanced back, as he left the table, to nod his adieux to the little company whom he had taken under his charge. Philip Romilly was gazing steadfastly out of the porthole. ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... nervously at their stations. Officers walked up and down the decks, speaking words of encouragement to the men, glancing sharply at primers and breechings to see that all was ready, and ever and anon stooping to peer through the porthole at the line of slowly moving lights that told of the approach of the enemy. On the quarter-deck, Paul Jones, with his officers about him, stood carefully watching the movements of the enemy through a night glass, giving occasionally ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... to sleep again, sat up in bed. Tayoga was deep in slumber, and Robert finally left the bed and went to the window, the shutter of which was not closed. It was a curious, round window, like a huge porthole, but the glass was clear and he had a good view of the street. He saw one or two sailors swaying rather more than the customary motion of a ship, pass by, and then a watchman carrying a club in ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... flattered Bill into keeping him company by asking him to spin him a yarn. He had good reason for believing that he knew his comrade's stock of stories by heart, but in the sequel it transpired that there was one, of a prisoner turning into a cat and getting out of the porthole and running up helmsmen's backs, which he hadn't heard before. And he told Bill in the most effective language he could command that he never wanted to hear ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... fort for a few days, but could not stand against the fire of the long rifles. It was sure death for a gunner to try to fire a cannon. Not a man dared show himself at a porthole, through which the rifle bullets were humming ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... vanished, and reappearing in a moment with a huge brass key, entered the arch, unlocked the gate which closed the aperture fronting the east like the cover of a porthole, and sent it with a heavy push ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... in violence, and about half-past eleven the ship began to complain, creaking, groaning and muttering to herself. I lay in my bunk and listened to the wind in the humming rigging, while the moonlight, shining through the porthole, filled the cabin with dim shadows. Toward midnight, mingled with the noises of the ship, another and more ominous sound became audible—the grinding of the ice ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... was also a woman of middle age who could not be persuaded to keep her cabin porthole closed at night. Again and again a ray of light was projected through it upon the surface of the water and the quarter- master, whose duty it was to see that no lights were shown, was at his wit's end. His difficulty was the greater because he could speak no English, and she no French. ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill |
