"Cable's length" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... overboard! This added to the general gloom; and now a cry was heard "there goes the Flying Dutchman," as was seen by several on board the Indiaman, during the interval of the vivid lightning, a large ship dash by them almost within cable's length, with a single topsail close reefed running before the gale with the speed of the wind. It did indeed look like a phantom craft. All was snug on board, not a soul was in sight, everything battened down, save one dark form apparently lashed ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... however, and survey'd The Russ flotilla getting under way; 'T was nine, when still advancing undismay'd, Within a cable's length their vessels lay Off Ismail, and commenced a cannonade, Which was return'd with interest, I may say, And by a fire of musketry and grape, And shells and shot of ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... scattered over the firmament, enabled him to distinguish the canopy of the sky from the waste of waters that surrounded him. Even a ship under full spread of canvas could not have been seen, though passing at a cable's length from the raft. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... the ship was wrecked not a cable's length from the shore, firmly fixed upon a reef of rocks upon which she had been thrown; the water was smooth, and there was no difficulty in their communication. The savages, content with plundering whatever was washed on shore, had to the time of their quitting the rocks left them ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... Praya is renowned for very large sharks. I was informed by a captain in Her Majesty's service, that once, when he anchored at Porto Praya, he had left the ship to go on shore in one of the twenty-two-foot gigs, not unaptly nick-named coffins in the service. He had not pulled more than a cable's length from the ship, when a shark, nearly as long as the gig, came up swimming with great velocity after them; and as he passed, the animal shouldered the boat, so as nearly to upset it: as it was, the boat took in the water over the gunwale. As the animal appeared ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... within half a cable's length of our starboard beam, we could hear the sound of the shrill boatswain's pipe above the splash of the sea; when she came up to the wind so close to the cutter that it looked as if she was going to run us ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... had fairly parted from our Esquimau friends it was near eleven o'clock, P.M.,—after sunset. Instead of standing out into the straits, we beat up for about a mile along the ice-field, and anchored in thirteen fathoms, at about a cable's length from the island, to the east of the ice-island. The weather had held fine. The roadstead between the island and the main was not at present much choked with ice. It was safe, to all appearance. We wanted rest. ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Harbour, and now the lights of the mail-tender coming out to us. What vagaries the mail-tender performs on the way, in every point of the compass, especially in those where she has no business, and why she performs them, Heaven only knows! At length she is seen plunging within a cable's length of our port broadside, and is being roared at through our speaking-trumpets to do this thing, and not to do that, and to stand by the other, as if she were a very demented tender indeed. Then, we slackening amidst ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... the night the off-shore wind arose. At last the sun sank down, the rosy light Faded from Andes' peaked and bosomed snow: The night-wind rose: the wine-skins were up-hauled; And, like a hound unleashed, the Golden Hynde Leapt forward thro' the gloom. A cable's length Divided them. The Cacafuego heard A rough voice in the darkness bidding her Heave to! She held her course. Drake gave the word. A broadside shattered the night, and over her side Her main-yard clattered like a broken wing! On to her decks the British sea-dogs ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... grunt of satisfaction, he swung round the tiller and headed shorewards. Before me in the twilight I saw only a wooded bluff which, as we approached, divided itself into two. Presently a channel appeared, a narrow thing about as broad as a cable's length, into which the wind carried us. Here it was very dark, the high sides with their gloomy trees showing at the top a thin line of reddening sky. Shalah hugged the starboard shore, and as the screen of the forest caught the wind it ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... least a hundred feet high, was only about a cable's length from the Forward, and threatened to pound ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... found the Loriotte at anchor within a cable's length of the Pilgrim. The next day we were "turned-to'' early, and began taking off the hatches, overhauling the cargo, and getting everything ready for inspection. At eight, the officers of the customs, five in number, came on board, and began examining the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the deck, as if to see who had spoken, yet seeming not to see me at all, Roger, who had lived all his life within a cable's length of the house where I was born, who had taught me to box the compass before I learned my ABC's, whose interest in my own sister had partly mystified, partly amused her younger brother—that very Roger climbed aboard ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... good, yet difficult of access, there being no harbors, many reefs, and shallow water for the distance of nearly two leagues from land. The most that we found was seven or eight fathoms in some channels, which, however, continued only a cable's length, when there were suddenly only two or three fathoms; but one should not trust the water who has not well examined the depth ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... the block was not more than half a cable's length from the "Jeune-Hardie," a dull sound was heard, and a veritable waterspout fell upon the bow of the vessel, which then rose on the back of ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... seven heard a rumbling noise, looked over the vessel's side and saw we were in shoal water, the vessel gradually losing her way, but still continued forging ahead a little; lowered the boat and sounded round, found more water ahead, thirteen and fourteen feet; inshore, about half a cable's length found five and six fathoms; to seaward, eleven and eleven and a half feet. Set the foresail: having a flowing tide the vessel went ahead and deepened our water; after going ahead about two or three ship's lengths touched again slightly, and immediately after got into five and six fathoms. ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... extremity of the western promontory, we observed an exposure of rock, jutting out of the ice near sea-level, in the face of a scar left by an avalanche. Later, when passing within half a cable's length of several berg-like masses of ice lying off the coast, rock was again visible in black relief against the water's edge, forming a pedestal for the ice. The ship was kept farther offshore, after this warning, for though she was designed to buffet ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... being come, they were suspended to give some repose to the crew, who had displayed extreme activity. The next day, the third, the top masts were got down, the yards lowered, and they heaved at the capstern upon an anchor which had been fixed the evening before, at a cable's length a-stern of the frigate. This operation was fruitless; for the anchor, which was too weak, could not make sufficient resistance and gave way: a bower anchor was then used, which, after infinite pains, was ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... right whale, and by good luck were able. to make her fast to the stern of the ship. "And, if you will believe me, Miss Fountain, though there was just a breath on and off right aft, and the foresail, jib and mizzen all set to catch it, she towed the ship astern a good cable's length, and the last thing was she broke the harpoon shaft just below the line, and away she swam right in the ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... can't tell while she is coming head on; but I cannot make out that she has gained a cable's length upon us." ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... by its reddish appearance and having a steep rock lying off it, we steered for Snug Cove, on the north-west side of the bay; and there anchored in 31/2 fathoms, sandy bottom, at something more than a cable's length from the small beach, and the same distance from the two points which bound the cove. In this situation, the outer red point was hidden by Snug-cove Head; and further out, in 5 fathoms, where the Nautilus anchored, the head and point were in ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... and smote amain The vessel in its strength; She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable's length. ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... dead by immoderate labor, and ill food, the rest were in a very weak condition. On the fifth of November, which was the beginning of summer in those parts, the weather being very hazy, the seamen spied a rock, within half a cable's length of the ship; but the wind was so strong that we were driven directly upon it, and immediately split. Six of the crew, of whom I was one, having let down the boat into the sea, made a shift to get clear of the ship and the rock. We rowed, by my computation, about three leagues, till we ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... of them the whole ocean was white with foam, and the waves, instead of rolling on in regular succession, appeared to be tossing about in mad gambols. A single streak of dark billows, not half a cable's length in width, could be discerned running into this chaos of water; but it was soon lost to the eye amid the confusion of the disturbed element. Along this narrow path the vessel moved more heavily than before, being brought so near the wind as to keep her sails ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the north was whipping the water into white peaks of foam; the sky was of a hard brightness and the sun shone brilliantly. The tide was running out, and the rock in the very neck of the haven was thrusting its black crest above the water. A cable's length this side of it rode the black hull and naked spars ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... deal to say about the Penobscot, and Bobtail described her cabin, state-rooms, kitchen, and forecastle while they were waiting. She lay only a cable's length from the Skylark, and they could see all that was ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... not half a cable's length away, wallowed a great black shape. The mighty bow swept veering past her quarter, then her stern, and clear of it by no more than ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... her, and begged she might be sent to France to finish her education. She was above two years in France; and as she refused to marry a count of the "aunt's" providing, she was disinherited and sent back to her mother. When within a cable's length of the island a hurricane dashed the ship to pieces, and the dead body of Virginia was thrown upon the shore. Paul drooped from grief, and within two months followed her to the grave.—Bernardin de St. Pierre, Paul ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... announced, "has got to take a beatin' while lookin' for an openin' to put over the knockout blow. If the old Maggie holds together till we're within a cable's length o' that schooner an' we ain't all killed by that time, I bet I'll make them skunks sing soft ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... the boat through the water, making it foam, and they had but a cable's length to go, but the moments were lengthened out by excitement, and it seemed to Mark as if Joe Dance would never get the cable ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... at which I, girl of twelve as I was, was struck with terror—the two French ships appeared round the headland with the Britannia following with French colours at her peak. The three came in together very slowly, and then dropped anchor within a cable's length of the beach. The captain's wife looked at them wildly for a moment, and then fell forward on her face. ...
— "Old Mary" - 1901 • Louis Becke
... to do duty. The consul, who had promised to return, did not show; and at last the mate, having now but a few invalids and landsmen to work the ship and keep her off shore, was compelled to enter the harbour. The Julia came to an anchor within cable's length of the French frigate, on board which consul Wilson repaired to obtain assistance. The Reine Blanche was to sail in a few days for Valparaiso, and the mutineers expected to go with her and be delivered up to a British ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... although he did not let go the spokes of the wheel. It had nearly half turned over, right for us, when the ice below, being heavier on one side than on the other, gave it a more slanting impetus, and shifting the direction of its fall, it plunged into the sea about a cable's length astern of us, throwing up the water to the heavens in foam, and blinding us all with the violence with which it dashed into our faces. For a minute the run of the waves was checked, and the sea appeared to boil and dance, throwing up peaked, pointed masses ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... commodore who gives the dinner, he either heaves to, while the boats of the several captains come on board, or he edges down to the different ships in succession, passes them at the distance of a quarter of a cable's length, picks up his guests, and resumes his station ahead, or to windward, or wherever it may suit him to place himself so as best to guard his charge. If any of the fast sailers have occasion to heave to, either before or after dinner, to lower down or to hoist ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... the loss of my old trusty servant and companion, that I immediately ordered five guns to be loaded with small shot, and four with great, and gave them such a broadside as they had never heard in their lives before. They were not above half a cable's length off when we fired; and our gunners took their aim so well, that three or four of their canoes were overset, as we had reason to believe, by one shot only. The ill manners of turning up their bare backs to us gave us no great offence; neither did I know for certain whether that which would pass ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... large pond of water in the middle, all frozen over, except thirty or forty yards round the edge of it, which was water, with loose pieces of broken ice, and so shallow, that they walked through it, and went over on the solid ice. The ground between the sea and the pond was from half a cable's length to a quarter of a mile broad, and the whole island appeared covered with gravel and small stones, without the smallest verdure or vegetation of any kind. They met with only one piece of drift wood, about three fathom long, with a root on it, and as thick as the Carcass's mizen mast; ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... squally clouds, now shone forth with warmth and unblemished splendour. Many ladies and gentlemen walked up and down on a promenade, evidently a favourite and fashionable lounge, within the ramparts of a citadel, bristling with guns of tremendous calibre, not a cable's length from the Iris; so, that, I could see, without being much observed, the gaiety which was in vogue, and could almost hear, did I understand the language, the anxiety expressed to know what and whence we were. The ladies in their French pink bonnets, and English dresses, pointed, gathering ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... of this attention on the part of the skipper of the Skylark was to lessen the distance between her and the Sea Foam; they were abeam of each other, with the Phantom in the same line. The Christabel was about a cable's length ahead ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... His philosophy had always contemplated it at a distance, toward which easy and gradual approaches might be made: but here it was, now, at a cable's length! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... length of the east side of the island, and is defended from the sea by a reef of coral rocks: The southermost opening in this reef, or channel, into the harbour, by which we entered, is little more than a cable's length wide; it lies off the eastermost point of the island, and may be known by another small woody island, which lies a little to the south-east of it, called by the people here Oatara. Between three and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... like the "Caledonia," keeping out of carronade distance of an opponent with heavy scantling, would not in the least apply to the "Niagara." For her, the standard of position was not, as Cooper insists, a half-cable's length from her next ahead, the "Caledonia;" but abreast her designated opponent, at the same distance as the "Lawrence" from the enemy's line. Repeated mishaps had established the rule that position was to be taken from the centre,—that is, from the commander-in-chief. Ships in ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... circumstances which are so potent in the shaping of events. Had either of the sails blown out, or had the mainsail been set at the same time as the foresail, the course followed during the next few hours must have been deviated from to some extent, and the alteration of a cable's length in direction could not fail to exercise the most momentous result on the fortunes of the Kansas. But ships are singularly akin to men in respect to the apparent vagaries of fate. A moment's hesitation, a mere pace to right or left, may mean all the difference between success ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy |
