"Mainmast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... incident of the coffin is this: After the battle of the Nile a portion of the Orient's mainmast was drifting about, and was picked up by order of Captain Hallowell of the Swiftsure, who had it made into a coffin. It was handsomely finished, and sent to Admiral Nelson with ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... harmony their oars, when first putting forth to sea, kept time. And on this occasion Alcman superseded the wonted performer by his own more popular song and the melody of his richer voice. Standing by the mainmast, and holding the large harp, which was stricken by the quill, its strings being deepened by a sounding-board, he chanted an Io Paean to the Dorian god of light and poesy. The harp at stated intervals was supported ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... his master were again released, Ledscha was standing, in the dusk of evening, at the foot of the mainmast, pressing her brow against the wood as if she needed some support to save herself ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the 18th of January 1741, and soon after began to meet with uncertain, stormy weather, in which the Tryal sloop lost her mainmast, and was towed by one of the squadron; the rest separated from us, but as our rendezvous was at St. Julien's, a port on the coast of Patagonia, or, as others term it, Terra Magellanica, in 49 deg. 30' South, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... American, which rests upon the sworn testimony of numerous competent witnesses before a formal Court of Inquiry.[353] By this it was found proved that the "Little Belt" fired the first gun, which by Rodgers' statement cut away a backstay and went into the mainmast. The batteries of both ships opened, and an engagement followed, lasting twelve or fifteen minutes, during which the "Little Belt," hopelessly inferior in force, was badly cut up, losing nine killed ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... shorter, and brighten with more concentrated light. It is but half past five, yet the sun dips redly behind Conanicut, the sunset-gun booms from our neighbor's yacht, the flag glides down from his mainmast, and the slender pennant, running swiftly up the opposite halyards, dances and flickers like a flame, and at last perches, with dainty hesitation, at the mast-head. A tint of salmon-color, burnished into long undulations of lustre, overspreads the ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... en masse—being only one—from its lolling position beside the mainmast, and looked out over the disturbed waters. And then it was the ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... coming from the study, crossing the terrace, climbing the old oak tree, his face resolute and his hair bright. He began the day thus because there was not time to go far afield before his lessons. The old tree's variety never staled; it had mainmast, foremast, top-gallant mast, and he could always come down by the halyards—or ropes of the swing. After his lessons, completed by eleven, he would go to the kitchen for a thin piece of cheese, a biscuit and two ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the ground stood a decked mimic ship, with real masts, yards, and sails—mainmast seventy feet high. At the word of command from the Skipper of this ship—a mahogany-faced Old Salt, with the indispensable quid in his cheek, the true nautical roll, and all wonderfully complete—the rigging was covered with a swarm of boys: one, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... the prophets, or most likely he wouldn't have said that. It hit Beriah like a snowslide off a barn roof. I found out afterwards that the widder had more'n half promised to go with HIM. He slumped down in his chair as if his mainmast was carried away, and he didn't even rise to blow for the rest of the time we was in the shanty. Just set there, looking fishy-eyed ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the mainmast head Lord, how beautiful was Thy day! Every waft of the air Was a whisper of prayer, Or a dirge for ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... them to a port, where a ship was never known to have entered. There they anchored, and fearing that the wind with which they entered might shift to that which generally prevails in that season and with greater fury, they determined to run the said ship into the mud, and to cut away the mainmast, in order to render them less liable to drag, and to leave the port again and encounter the enemy. Accordingly, all possible haste was displayed in disembarking the men, and the silver and reals of your Majesty and of private persons, and the most valuable goods; but scarcely was that done when the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... been on the point of trying to join von Ludwig and Jack, saw the strategy of this plan and stooped down behind the guns. The lookout forward also stepped behind the mainmast, where he began to blaze away at the foe. The man aft, by a dash, succeeded in reaching the side of von ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... his cabin, and Scott walked aft to the compass abaft the mainmast. The binnacle was lighted, and he looked into it. The course was all right, though the ship yawed a good deal in the trough of the sea, the gale pelting her squarely on the beam. Though it was not an ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... rattling of blocks, and then a broadside was fired; but it is no easy matter for angry and excited men to hit a mast at the distance of nearly half a mile. One of the shots ploughed up the deck within a yard of the foot of the mainmast, another splintered a boat, three others added to the holes in the sails, but no damage of importance was done. By the time the Spaniard had borne round and was again in chase, the Good Venture was over half a ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... in that old book the "Pilgrim's Progress." By her build she was a foreign ship, but I was not certain of her nationality. She had been painted green, but the colour was faded and weathered, and the paint peeling off in strips. The wreck of the mainmast lay alongside, half-buried in sand. She was a forlorn sight, indeed, and I could not look without emotion at the bits of rope that still hung about her, so often handled of yore by shouting seamen; or the little scuttle where they had passed up and down to their affairs; or that poor noseless ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... brother Charley, cap'n o' th' Cambria, sir, in th' 'Amburg-American Line, 'e learned me to kill sea sorpints, w'en I was jest a l-little bit of a—a piker, sor. An' I n-never forgot 'ow 'e told me to do it. You climb up th' mainmast, sor, w'ere you can git at their 'eads, cross your fingers for luck, an' blow tobacco smoke in their eyes. They 'ate tobacco ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... new opportunities of power and service. The tree does not decay where it stands, nor does it often fall because its core is honeycombed by disease. It is cut down in the meridian of its strength, because somewhere on distant seas a new ship is to be launched and needs a stalwart mainmast, or a home is to be builded that needs the fiber of strong and steadfast timber. So, I think, with men and women, there would not be so much unsightly growing old, with waning power and wasted faculties, if we attended more strictly to the laws of health, and when death came ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... fairly still at the leeward of the bark, I found that the vessel was rolling badly, and greatly endangering the safety of the Sylvania. The gale was driving the wreck farther on the reef, and I feared that the mainmast would go by the board and fall on ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... thundered against the Merrimac, and the Merrimac thundered against the Congress. The tall frigate and her fifty guns wished herself an iron-clad; the swan would have blithely changed with the ugly duckling. We brought down her mainmast, we disabled her guns, we strewed her decks with blood and anguish (war is a wild beast, nothing more, and I'll hail the day when it lies slain). We smashed in her sides and we set her afire. She hauled down ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... dropping quietly through the Golden Gate, swimming on that sheen of gold, a mere shadow, specked with lights red and green. In a few moments her bows were shut from sight by the old fort at the Gate. Then her red light vanished, then the mainmast. She was gone. By midnight she would be out of sight of land, rolling on the swell of the lonely ocean under ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... us," added uncle Hapgood. "If he hadn't been as cool as cowcumber, and as stiff as the mainmast of a frigate, we should have been ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... corsairs believing that four muskets did more execution than one cannon.[108] The buccaneers sometimes used brigantines, vessels with two masts, the fore or mizzenmast being square-rigged with two sails and the mainmast rigged like that of a barque. The corsair at Martinique of whom Labat speaks was captain of a corvette, a boat like a brigantine, except that all the sails were square-rigged. At the beginning of a voyage the freebooters were generally so crowded in their small ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... said that the treasure ship was only one day ahead. But she was getting near to Panama; so every nerve was strained anew. Presently Jack Drake, the Captain's page, yelled out Sail-ho! and scrambled down the mainmast to get the golden chain that Drake had promised to the first lookout who saw the chase. It was ticklish work, so near to Panama; and local winds might ruin all. So Drake, in order not to frighten her, trailed a dozen big empty wine jars over the stern to moderate his ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... my own story. Fingal, you must know, was a giant himself, and no fool of one, and any one that affronted him was as sure of a bating, as I am to keep the middle watch to-night. But there was a giant in Scotland as tall as the mainmast, more or less, as we say when we a'n't quite sure, as it saves telling more lies than there's occasion for. Well, this Scotch giant heard of Fingal, and how he had beaten everybody, and he said, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... sweeping the captain and six of the sailors overboard. The water poured in torrents into the cabins, and drove every one from the berths. The bulwarks, boats, and binnacle were carried clean off, and the mainmast had to be cut away. The sailors then turned the ship about, and after a long and dangerous voyage, succeeded in bringing her, dismasted as she ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... of the 10th, there was a dreadful storm of thunder, lightning, and rain, during which the mainmast of one of the Dutch East Indiamen was split, and carried away by the deck; and the maintop-mast and topgallant-mast were shivered to pieces. The stroke was probably directed by an iron spindle, which was at the maintop gallantmast head. As this ship lay very ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... openings into a lower or half deck about three feet high, in which sit the two steersmen. In the after part of the vessel was a low poop, about three and a half feet high, which forms the captain's cabin, its furniture consisting of boxes, mats, and pillows. In front of the poop and mainmast was a little thatched house on deck, about four feet high to the ridge; and one compartment of this, forming a cabin six and a half feet long by five and a half wide, I had all to myself, and it was the snuggest and most comfortable ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... must go back on shore. There's lots of work. We will begin loading this schooner to-morrow morning, first thing. All the bundles are ready. If you should want me for anything, hoist some kind of flag on the mainmast. At night two shots will fetch me." Then he added, in a friendly tone, "Won't you come and dine in the house to-night? It can't be good for you to stew on board like that, day ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... Norseman's King must stand up tall, If he would be head over all; Mainmast of Battle! when the plain Is miry-red with bloody rain! And grip his weapon for the fight, Until his knuckles grin tooth-white, The banner-staff he bears is best If double handful for the rest: When "follow ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... but doesn't like to show funk, either—and he goes. Lots of water on the main-deck, and he splashes along; it was getting dark, too. All at once, by the mainmast, somebody catches him by the arm. Stafford. He wasn't thinking of Stafford at all. Captain Harry had said something as to the mate not being quite satisfactory, but it wasn't much. Cloete doesn't recognise him in his oilskins at first. He sees ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... her mast and sail—the sail furled to the mast, as it was used to lie in her—close against the stump of the mainmast; but though I sought with all the diligence that hurry would permit for her rudder, I nowhere saw it, but I met with an oar that had belonged to the other boat, and this with the mast and sail I dropped into her, the swell ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... the only one who had noted the falling barometer. Captain Hamilton was already standing at the foot of the mainmast, shouting orders that were taken up by Ditty and Rogers and carried ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... couldn't go below much, fur there was a pretty good swell on the sea, an' things was floatin' about so's to make it dangerous. But we fished out a piece of canvas, which we rigged up ag'in' the stump of the mainmast so that we could have somethin' that we could sit down an' grumble under. What struck us all the hardest was that the bark was loaded with a whole cargo of jolly things to eat, which was just as good as ever they was, fur the water ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... tempest was in full force, only four men were left to work the brig, which was labouring terribly with seven feet of water in her hold. They had to cut down the mainmast, and, when morning came, the mizen. That day was truly awful, the night was more awful still! If Dirk Peters and his companions had not lashed themselves securely to the remains of the rigging, they must have been carried away ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... with two masts, a mainmast and a mizzen or dandy mast. The former was 6 feet long and the latter 4 feet long, and each measured 1-1/2 inches in diameter at the base, tapering to about 1 inch diameter at the upper end. They were held in brass bands, or clamps, ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... commenced settling by the stern before the termination of the conflict. Her crew had jumped into the sea, supporting themselves by portions of the wreck, spars, and other accessible objects, the water swept over the stern and upper deck, and when thus partially submerged, the mainmast, pierced by a shot, broke off near the head, the bow lifted from the waves, and then came the end. Suddenly assuming a perpendicular position, caused by the falling aft of the battery and stores, straight as a plumb-line, stern first, she went down, the jibboom being the ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... on the 12th, a Dutch East Indiaman, about two cables away from the Endeavour, had mainmast "split all to shivers." ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... declined to do so; but, at last, on the 28th of April, this island also issued a manifesto of adherence to the patriotic cause. On the third of May, a squadron of eleven Hydriot and seven Spezzia vessels sailed from Hydra, having on the mainmast "an address to the people of the Egean sea, inviting them to rally round the national standard: an address that was received with enthusiasm in every quarter of the Archipelago where the Turks were not numerous enough to ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... dire shot, the last they could supply, Close by the board the prince's mainmast bore: All three now helpless by each other lie, And this offends not, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... the dory rose out of the nest of four others that lay just aft of the mainmast. A hand swung her outboard and she was lowered away until she danced on ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... a terrible naval battle between the English and the Dutch, the English flag-ship, commanded by Admiral Narborough, was drawn into the thickest of the fight. Two masts were soon shot away, and the mainmast fell with a fearful crash upon the deck. Admiral Narborough saw that all was lost unless he could bring up his ships from the right. Hastily scrawling an order, he called for volunteers to swim across the boiling water, under the hail of shot and shell. A dozen sailors at once offered their ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Costaguana, diagonal red and yellow, with two green palm trees in the middle, floated lazily at the mainmast head of the Juno. A multitude of fireworks being let off in their thousands at the water's edge in honour of the President kept up a mysterious crepitating noise half round the harbour. Now and then a lot of rockets, swishing upwards invisibly, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... launched out of the lee gangway; lines with life-buoys attached were drifted towards the boat, and in less than half an hour the crew was taken off and put aboard the Yarmouth fisherman. Succour came none too soon, as in less than an hour the brig's mainmast went by the board. She cocked her stern up and went down head first. The smack reached close across the stern of the Blake, and the shipwrecked crew exchanged salutes with her. Her speaking-trumpet was used in trying ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... seaman be other than superstitious or religious? The hamper of ropes that clung round the mainmast seemed to gibber like a man in fever as the gale threaded the mazes; the hollow down-draught from the foresail cried in boding tones; it seemed like some malignant elf calling "Woe to you! Woe for ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... whilst settling down. She was greatly damaged, both in hull and rigging; the spar-deck and forecastle being swept away, and her main deck blown up in midships, very possibly through the explosion of her boilers. Her bowsprit and mizzen-mast were gone, as was also her fore topmast; and the mainmast, with topmast and all attached, was leaning aft, and so far over the side that the observers would not have been surprised to see it fall at any moment. Loose ropes were trailing in all directions; ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... as the sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the mainmast-head. Lord, how beautiful was thy day! Every waft of the air Was a whisper of prayer, Or a dirge for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... which he had before marked out, ascended to the roof; a difficult feat, which would have been impossible to one whose father was not the master of a vessel, and who had not explored a ship from the step to the truck of the mainmast. It was done, safely done, and without much noise, which would have been as fatal as a fall. As he sprang from the window still to a projecting stone in the chimney, he heard the steps of the whole party on the stairs below. He was not an instant too soon in the execution ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... The ring-stemmed vessel, Bark of the atheling, lay there at anchor, Icy in glimmer and eager for sailing; The beloved leader laid they down there, Giver of rings, on the breast of the vessel, The famed by the mainmast. A many of jewels, Of fretted embossings, from far-lands brought over, Was placed near at hand then; and heard I not ever That a folk ever furnished a float more superbly With weapons of warfare, weeds for the battle, Bills and burnies; on his bosom sparkled Many a jewel that with him must ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... slumbers. The hard-breathing of Spike could be heard through the open windows of his state-room, and this was positively the only sound that was audible. The common men, who lay scattered about the decks, more especially from the mainmast forward, seemed to be so many logs, and from Mulford no breathing ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... exception of the blows of the carpenter's hammer, and the creaking of the pumps, nothing was heard save the voice of the captain, who stood leaning against the mainmast trying to ascertain on a chart the place to which he had been driven by the storm. The movements of the needle were scrutinized more and more carefully, while from time to time, the voice of an officer taking soundings, echoed on the air. At last the captain's finger ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... said jocosely. "Mr. Burns can't go on shore till the mainmast goes. I am very proud of ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... so prosperous, has been marred to-day by a sad accident. Mr. Wilkins, the mate, was standing almost directly under the mainmast at about 4.30 this afternoon, when Railton, who was aloft, let slip a block, which descended on the mate's head, striking it with fearful force and killing him instantly. He was an honest, kindly man, to judge from the little ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... handed me formally and solemnly. It was a semi-legal florid document, sealed with a bit of rope and tar. It certified that I had crossed the line. The witnesses were "The Mainmast," "The Mizzen Mast," and other ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... ten men wounded in this last attack, but none killed; and the mainmast was much damaged, and the rigging ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... see what Vandevelde ought to have done with the shadow of his ship spoken of in the first chapter of this section. In such a calm, we should in nature, if we had looked for the reflection, have seen it clear from the water-line to the flag on the mainmast; but in so doing, we should have appeared to ourselves to be looking under the water, and should have lost all feeling of surface. When we looked at the surface of the sea,—as we naturally should,—we should have seen the image of the hull absolutely clear and perfect, because that image ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... of incubation." The Cape of Storms, however, as it was originally named by Vasco de Gama, did not fail on this occasion to keep up its established character for bad weather. A severe gale set in from the east, which speedily increased to a storm. A sailor fell from "the third stage of the mainmast," (the main topgallant yard,) and was killed on the deck; and as the inhospitable shores of Africa were close under their lee, the ship appears for some time to have been in considerable danger. But in this (to him) novel scene ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... cut away the mainmast, which they did, and this augmented the shock, neither could they get clear of it, though they cut it close by the board, because it was much entangled within the rigging; they could see no land except an island which was about the distance of three leagues, and two ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... measure dear to you, confide now in Brangaene!" The unhappy Isolde, suffocating, gasps for air: "Air!... Air!... My heart is smothering!... Open! Open wide!" Brangaene hurriedly draws apart the tapestries which form the wall of the apartment at the back. The deck of the ship is seen from mainmast to stern; sailors busy with ropes, groups of knights and their esquires lounging. Tristan stands apart from the rest, with folded arms, staring abstractedly over the water. His servant Kurwenal lies idly outstretched at his feet. Isolde's eyes at ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... landing-place by the equipage-master, and he furnished me with a carriage to carry me to the governor, whose residence is about two miles from the town of Samarang. I requested and obtained leave to have our wants supplied, which were to recruit our provisions, and to get a any mainmast, having sprung ours in the passage ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... or four hours' sail Geoffrey and Lionel acquired much nautical knowledge. They learned the difference between the mainmast and the mizzen, found that all the strong ropes that kept the masts erect and stiff were called stays, that the ropes that hoist sails are called halliards, and that sheets is the name given to the ropes that ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... Dutch words which have resounded through the world, "Neen nimmer," "No, never." The fleets of Spain heard it, and understood it fully, when they saw the sinking Dutch ships with the flags nailed to the shattered mainmast, crying, "Neen nimmer," which indicated that they would ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... her high against the inky night. Then she understood. The vessel—her name, the One-and-All, in white letters on her forward bulwarks, glimmered into sight as Myra passed—lay warped alongside the wall, with her foreyard braced aslant to avoid chafing the roof of Mr. Benny's office, and her mainmast and standing rigging all but entirely hiding Mr. Benny's quay-door, the approach to which she completely obstructed. A little above her forestay a small window, uncurtained and brightly lit, broke the long stretch of featureless black wall. This was the ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and a solid shot carrying a line rose in the air, made a curve like a flying rocket, and fell athwart the wreck between her forestay and jib. A cheer went up from the men about the gun. When this line was hauled in and the hawser attached to it made fast high up on the mainmast and above the raging sea, and the car run off to the wreck, the crew could be landed clear of the surf and the slam ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... away close to the gammoning, and the foremast and main-topmast immediately followed it over the side. The wreck was quickly cleared; and, by the greatest activity and energy on the part of the officers and men, the mainyard and mainmast were saved, the latter having been endangered by the foremast falling across the stay, and the former by the wreck of the main-topmast and top-sail-yard lying upon it. Notwithstanding the continuance of the gale, and the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... remains, as it were embalmed, the famous ship Pelican, in which Drake had sailed round the world. There she stands, drawn up high and dry upon the sedgy bank of Thames, like an old warrior resting after his toil. Nailed upon her mainmast are epigrams and verses in honor of her and of her captain, three of which, by the Winchester scholar, Camden gives in his History; and Elizabeth's self consecrated her solemnly, and having banqueted on board, there and then honored Drake with the dignity ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... from rolling down it only by his own weight and the sun-blackened hand that lay outstretched upon the planks, his gaze wandered, but ever returned to the bell that hung, jammed with the dangerous heel-over of the vessel, in the small ornamental belfry immediately abaft the mainmast. The bell was of cast bronze, with half-obliterated bosses upon it that had been the heads of cherubs; but wind and salt spray had given it a thick incrustation of bright, beautiful, lichenous green. It was this colour that Abel Keeling's ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... admiral's flag at the mainmast," said Roger, but the match that he set up for a mast caught fire almost as soon as the candles were lighted in the miniature fleet. His flag fell overboard, ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... as the torpedo struck, it was attempted to send out an S.O.S. message by radio, but the mainmast was carried away and antennae falling and all electric power had failed. I then tried to have the gun sight lighting batteries connected up in an effort to send out a low power message with them, but it was at once evident that this would not be practicable before the ship sank. There ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... shot was dancing away to leeward. The next shot struck the merchantman on the quarter. A moment later the vessel was brought up into the wind and a broadside of eight guns fired. Two of them struck the hull of the privateer, another wounded the mainmast, while the rest cut holes through the sails and struck the water a quarter of a mile to windward. With an oath the captain of the privateer brought his vessel up into the wind, and then payed off on the ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... smouldering mutiny the ship's gunner died, and probably because the gutter boy, Greene, was the most poorly clad of all, Hudson gave the dead man's overcoat to the London lad. Instantly there was wild outcry from the other men. It was customary to auction a dead seaman's clothes from the mainmast. Why had the commander shown favour? In disgust Hudson turned the coat over to the new mate—thereby adding fresh fuel to the crew's wrath and making Greene a real source of danger. Greene was, to be sure, only a youth, ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... westward in the Nicholas Channel, off the northerly coast of the Island of Cuba. There was a high sea running, but the ship stood up well, and the few men who were on deck could get about easily. Even a boy of apparently not over seventeen, who came to a halt near the mainmast, managed to keep his balance with some help from a rope. That he did so was a credit to him, and it helped to give him a sailor-like and jaunty air. So did his blue trousers, blue flannel shirt ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... dwarfed and stunted. Vast, indeed, would be the force that would crush those bulging flanks, so cunningly built, moreover, that the ship must slip and rise to any too great lateral pressure. Far above her waist rose her smokestack. Overhead upon the mainmast was affixed the crow's nest. Whaleboats and cutters swung from her davits, while all her decks were cumbered with barrels, with crates, with boxes and ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... hours by an Asiatic ironclad, which was presently engaged by a British cruiser. The two ships fought for three hours, circling and driving southward as they fought, until the twilight and the cloud-drift of a rising gale swallowed them up. A few days later Bert's ship lost her rudder and mainmast in a gale. The crew ran out of food and subsisted on fish. They saw strange air-ships going eastward near the Azores and landed to get provisions and repair the rudder at Teneriffe. There they found the town destroyed ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... how this was done. There were two doors opening into the cuddy, one on each side of the mainmast, with a slide over each. Outside of these doors were two round holes, which I had sawed in the bulkhead for ventilation. By reaching the arm through one of these apertures the slide could be locked. I fastened Kate ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... The mainmast, an enormous spar of some sixty or seventy feet in length, is stepped almost amidships in a kind of tabernacle, and has neither stays nor shrouds, its only visible support being a wooden prop, which a few feet above the deck takes part of the pressure when running before the wind, ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... the narrows of New York harbor a ship having all the evidence of tempestuous passage: salt water-mark reaching to the top of the smoke-stack; mainmast, foremast, mizzenmast twisted off; bulwarks knocked in; lifeboats off the davit; jib-sheets and lee-bowlines missing; captain's bridge demolished; main shaft broken; all the pumps working to keep from sinking before they can get to wharfage. That ship is the institution of Christian ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... was that Jerry, when he chanced upon the wild-dog stowed shrewdly away from the wind in the lee-corner made by the mainmast and the cabin skylight, did not stop to consider whether the creature was bigger or fiercer than he. All he knew was that it was the ancient enemy—the wild- dog that had not come in to the fires of man. With a wild paean of joy that attracted Captain Van Horn's all-hearing ears and ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... describing. The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced anything like it. We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us; but, at the first puff, both our masts went by the board as if they had been sawed off—the mainmast taking with it my youngest brother, who had lashed himself to it ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... athwart the bow of a large merchantman, which in turn was almost foul of us. In less than five minutes the clipper sank. One man alone reappeared on the surface. He was so close, that from where I was holding on and crouching under the lee of the mainmast I could see the expression of his face. He was a splendidly built man, and his strength and activity must have been prodigious. He clung to the cable of the merchantman, which he had managed to clasp. As the vessel reared between the seas ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... every attitude is full of grace. Away above, on the lofty roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted spires spring high in the air, and through their rich tracery one sees the sky beyond. In their midst the central steeple towers proudly up like the mainmast of some great Indiaman among ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... for answer the frigate discharged a volley of all her guns damaging the ship and killing two of his men. He in turn now fell upon the frigate, discharging all his guns and musketry. The fight lasted nearly five hours, at the expiration of which the St. Francis was so crippled by the loss of her mainmast and injuries to her sails and rigging that Vergor was obliged to surrender. His long boat having been rendered unserviceable, the English captain sent his own to convey him on board. Vergor found the frigate to be the Albany, of 14 guns and 28 swivel ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... though he was far from remaining silent, and Royson, never at a loss when rapidity of thought and action was demanded, took the lead. He woke up the crew with a string of orders, rushed from foremast to mainmast and back to the bows again to see that the men hauled the right ropes and set the sails in the right way, and, had the Aphrodite bowling along under canvas in less than two minutes after the stopping of the screw. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... ships, which had suffered most, hauled off and abandoned the fight. That of the admiral had fared little better, and now her condition grew desperate. With her rigging torn, her mainmast half cut through, her mizzen-mast splintered, her cabin pierced, and her hull riddled with shot, another volley seemed likely to sink her, when Phips ordered her to be cut loose from her moorings, and she drifted out of fire, leaving cable and anchor ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... St. Maloes in France, in 1781, and went to sea at the age of thirteen; after several voyages in Europe, and to the coast of Africa, he was appointed mate of a French East Indiaman, bound to Madras. On the outward passage they encountered a heavy gale off the Cape of Good Hope, which sprung the mainmast and otherwise injured the ship, which determined the captain to bear up for the Mauritius, where he arrived in safety; a quarrel having taken place on the passage out between Lafitte and the captain, he ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... with his family on board of the vessel commanded by the Adelantado, and, sending back the damaged ship to port, continued on his course. Throughout the voyage he experienced the most tempestuous weather. In one storm the mainmast was sprung in four places. He was confined to his bed at the time by the gout; by his advice, however, and the activity of the Adelantado, the damage was skillfully repaired; the mast was shortened; the weak parts were fortified by wood taken from the castles or cabins which the ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... heard the crashing of her spars. The watchers stood up against the wind, battling with it to fling lines in the vain hope of saving some sailor who was being churned to death in that dreadful creaming of the sea below. Yes, and there were forms of men visible on board; two had climbed the mainmast, which crashed before they could clutch at the ropes that were being flung to them from land, crashed and carried them down shrieking into the surge. Mark found it hard to believe that last summer he had spent many sunlit hours dabbling in the sand for silver dollars of Portugal lost perhaps on ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... now, as we looked ahead, All for'ard, the long white deck Was growing a strange dull red,... Red from mainmast to bitts! Red on bulwark and wale,— Red by combing and hatch,— Red o'er netting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... days of our wrecking, Captain Selover had omitted his daily visit. The fact made me uneasy, so that at my first opportunity I sculled myself out to the schooner. I found him, moist-eyed as usual, leaning against the mainmast doing nothing. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... vessel of the national navy arriving with all speed on, her bowsprit gone, and her mainmast propped up, public curiosity was singularly excited. A compact crowd was soon assembled on the quays ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... however, growing tired of the misery around me, I crawled over to the end of the farther cabin, which seemed to be deserted. Presently the captain and my father came down the stairs and I heard the officer say in a hoarse whisper. 'I will not deceive you, Mr. Hunt; the mainmast is down, the steering gear useless, the crew is not up to its business, and I fear we cannot weather the night!' I almost screamed aloud in my fright, but just then a long, lanky figure rose from the floor where it had been lying. It was one of the ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... Mr. Baker was mustering the crew. As they stumbled and lurched along past the mainmast, they could see aft his round, broad face with a white paper before it, and beside his shoulder the sleepy head, writh dropped eyelids, of the boy, who held, suspended at the end of his raised arm, the luminous globe of a lamp. Even ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... care," answered the fun-loving Rover, and launched the baseball high into the air. Just then the steam yacht gave a lurch, the ball hit the mainmast, and down it bounced squarely upon Asa Carey's head, knocking the mate's cap over his eyes ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... motionless, and quiet; no noisy children, no slatternly, slipshod women rolling about the decks, no slush, no washing of dirty linen in dirtier water. There was the old mate in a clean shirt at last, leaning against the mainmast, and smoking his yard of clay; the butcher close—shaven and clean; the sailors smart, and welcoming us with a smile. It almost looked like going home. Dined in Lyttelton with several of my fellow-passengers, who evidently thought it best to be off with the old love before they were ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... then already a full admiral, wearing his flag at the mainmast head, was made Vice-Admiral of Great Britain; an honorary position, but the highest in point of naval distinction that the nation had to give. As one who held it three-quarters of a century later wrote, "It has ever been regarded as the most distinguished ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... Runnymede's mainmast was cut away, and she was shored up with it to make her ride easily, being much shaken by the surf. The Hope was brought on shore, and her deck and false keel taken off, that she might be used for landing provisions and stores. A brig appeared in sight to the southward. The Runnymede made signals, ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... Jack never seed him coming, until he felt his black hands upon his throat, and then he ups with the tiller at his noddle, and sends him floundering across the boat's thwarts like a flat-fish. I thought, your honour, seeing as how I have got the command of the schooner, of tying him up to the mainmast, and giving him two or three round dozen or so, and then sending him to swim among the mascannungy with a twenty-four pound shot in his neckcloth; but, seeing as how your honour is going among them savages agin, I thought ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... our mainmast was struck by the lightning, which split a piece off it from top to bottom, but fortunately did not disable it; but a sad mishap befell one of our men while sitting at mess at the time, for he was struck dead, his shirt being burnt in places like tinder, and his mess-tin being ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... down, and farther down, Her love's ship for to see, And the topmast and the mainmast Shone like the ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... away, to secure foremast; Port main rigging and main stays disabled, to secure mainmast; To fish a lower mast and yard; Steering apparatus disabled, what means of repairs ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... meters (100 feet) in length and 7.92 meters (26 feet) in beam and that she drew 3.66 meters (12 feet) in port and 4.27 meters (14 feet) loaded. Marestier's sketch (see fig. 3) of the outboard of the Savannah shows a ship-rigged, flush-decked vessel with a small deckhouse forward of the mainmast and nearly abreast of the side paddle wheels. The stack is a little forward of the deckhouse and has an elbow at its top. Netting quarter-deck rail is shown and a bust figurehead is indicated. The position of the hawse pipe shown at the bow indicates the wheel shaft ...
— The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model - United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80 • Howard I. Chapelle
... shouted; "we shall finish with her before the other can come up." As he spoke a shot from the long-tom struck the cutter's mainmast, which tottered for a moment and then fell over her side towards L'Agile, and the sails and hamper entirely prevented the crew from working her guns. For another five minutes the fire was kept up; then the crew were seen to be leaping overboard, and presently a man stood up and shouted ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... the iron lower deck watertight over the remaining holds. For this purpose three powerful pumps, with the necessary boilers, were obtained from Halifax, sent by rail to Annapolis, and then shipped on board a tug, from which they were hoisted into the Ulunda by means of the derricks on the mainmast. These were centrifugal pumps, capable of discharging 2,000 gallons a minute each. One was placed in the engine room, another with its suction in No. 3 hold, and when these two compartments were pumped dry, it was found ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... Tenkoruti, he was tall and lean and a swift talker—a rare trait in the islands. He possessed every accomplishment. He knew sorcery, he was the best genealogist of his day, he was a poet, he could dance and make canoes and armour; and the famous mast of Apemama, which ran one joint higher than the mainmast of a full-rigged ship, was of his conception and design. But these were avocations, and the man's trade was war. 'When my uncle go make wa', he laugh,' said Tembinok'. He forbade the use of field fortification, that protractor of native hostilities; his men must fight ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the mainmast head. Lord, how beautiful was Thy day! Every waft of the air Was a whisper of prayer, Or ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the sailors, including Saxtorph, were scraping the poop rail. The fifth sailor, rifle in hand, was standing guard by the water-tank just for'ard of the mainmast. I was for'ard, putting in the finishing licks on a new jaw for the fore-gaff. I was just reaching for my pipe where I had laid it down, when I heard a shot from shore. I straightened up to look. Something struck me on the ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... on board the Polynesia, the moon had barely cleared the horizon, as we have stated, and the top of the mainmast just reached the uppermost portion of the periphery, while spars, rigging and hull were marked against the yellow disk as distinctly as if painted ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... line with their lofty perch a sailor swung spider-like among the network of sheets and halyards that clung about the mainmast, its meshes clearly defined against the pure blue of the sky, while below there, on the bridge, the big brass nautical instruments gleamed, and the caps of the Captain and his lieutenants showed ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... carried over a sunken reef, and lay with her masts pointing towards the shore, which could be distinguished through the gloom not more than half a mile away. My father stood by the mainmast perfectly composed, issuing orders as if nothing had occurred. Hands were sent aloft to furl the foretopsail; and he then directed that the boats on the starboard side should be brought over, so as to be launched into the smoother ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... Through hatches and seams; 'Tis roaring and rushing O'er keelson and beams; And nought save the lightning On mainmast or boom, At intervals brightening ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... scarcely half a minute later, a British flag ran gayly up the mainmast, and a boat seemed to drop down over the ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... country of people six inches or sixty feet high, and by the mere process of the logic, a thousand wonderful absurdities are evolved, at so many stages of the calculation. Turning to the first minister who waited behind him with a white staff near as tall as the mainmast of the "Royal Sovereign," the King of Brobdingnag observes how contemptible a thing human grandeur is, as represented by such a contemptible little creature as Gulliver. "The Emperor of Lilliput's features are strong and masculine" (what a surprising humour there is in ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... snow differed somewhat slightly from a brig. It had two masts similar to the fore and mainmasts of a brig or ship, and, close abaft the mainmast, a ...
— The Beginning Of The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... resembles the Hebrew word 'Netz,' which means a bird resembling the osprey, or sea eagle. Apollodorus says, that Minos ordered Scylla to be thrown into the sea; and Zenodotus, that he caused her to be hanged at the mainmast of his ship. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Dick and a few others. "We will have to stay here for a time until I can get in connection with the outside world. Then, perhaps, some one may know about this place, and a way out of it. One vessel has gone down here, and I don't care to be the next, and leave my mainmast sticking up out of the water to show folks the way ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... and a frantic banging of canvas as the schooner came up beam to the wind, with her rent mainsail flogging itself to tatters. Its ponderous boom was broken, and the mainmast-head had gone, but it was not the first time the sealermen had grappled with somewhat similar difficulties, and Dampier kept his head. He had the boat to think of, and she was somewhere to windward, hidden in the sudden darkness and the turmoil of the quickly rising sea, but ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... past the sides as if the ship was under weigh in a heavy sea; thus when the little vessel reached our bows there was nothing to save her. Fortunately she came down upon us in such a manner that she escaped with the loss of mainmast and sail, whilst a little damage was done to our head-gear ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... began to cry out and entreat the favor of our blessed Father Ignatius, then the vessel ceased to drift. Thus invoking him in every danger—as they frequently did, both religious and laymen—the Lord again bestowed upon them a special favor; for when the mainmast fell, which they were obliged to cut, its fall was not, as they feared, such as to sink the vessel, inasmuch as the yard and the topsail, falling upon the rocks, served as a support, and on that side held back the ship so that it could not drift to destruction. At the same time, as they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... me with his eye. He stood erect dilating, until he seemed to reach the height of a mainmast, as long and lank and brown as the subject of the veritable rime; and his ears, contracted, flapped like the pectorals of a flying-fish. It was uncertain whether he was going to fly or swim, or seize ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... try," she said, and she walked to the piano which was screwed athwart the deck in front of the polished mahogany sheath of the steel mainmast. It was in her mind to play some lively excerpts from the light operas then in vogue, but the secret influences of the hour were stronger than her studied intent, and, when her fingers touched the keys, they wandered, almost without volition, into the subtle harmonies of Gounod's ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... orlop (and mighty thankful) and so to the upper deck, to find a wondrous fair night breathing a sweet and balmy air and with a round moon uprising against a great plenitude of stars. The moon was low as yet and, taking advantage of the shadows, I got me into the gloom of the mainmast where the boats were stowed; and here (being well screened from chance view) I sat me down to drink in the glory of sea and sky, and to wait for chance of speech with Adam. And huge joy was it to behold ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... foreseeing a levee in her honour upon the ship. And so it proved. I had scarce set out in a pungy from the dock, when I perceived a dozen boats about the packet; and when I thrust my shoulders through the gangway, there was the company gathered at the mainmast. They made a gay bit of colour,—Dr. Courtenay in a green coat laced with fine Mechlin, Fitzhugh in claret and silk stockings of a Quaker gray, and the other gentlemen as smartly drest. The Dulany girls and the Fotheringay girls, and I know not how many others, were there ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... this time, in all the excitement of action, pacing the quarter-deck. A shot through the mainmast knocked the splinters about; and he observed to one of his officers with a smile, "It is warm work, and this day may be the last to any of us at a moment:"—and then stopping short at the gangway, added, with emotion—"But mark you! ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... was the first I had ever witnessed, and was undoubtedly a more formidable one than I have ever since encountered in eighteen passages across the Atlantic. I was told, after it was over, that the vessel had sprung its mainmast—a very serious injury to a sailing ship, I suppose, by the mode in which it was spoken of; and for three days we were unable to carry any sail whatever for ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... while Castell and all the ship's company, save the helmsman who steered her to the harbour's mouth, clung to the bulwarks and the cordage of the mainmast, and, forgetful of their own peril, watched in ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... said he, "one little dose of this will be better for you than a whole night's sleep; there, take that now, and then eat seven or eight biscuits, and you'll feel as strong as the mainmast." ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the Bermuda channel, a storm separated the convoy from the other ships, sent her mainmast overboard, broke her rudder, and the ship sprang a leak. In this condition, after a consultation among the officers, it was decided to repair the damage as well as possible and steer for Puerto Rico, which they reached on the 9th of April. The treasure ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... flowed into the ship uninterruptedly from the windward, and their speedy destruction seemed quite inevitable; so that they were now of opinion their only chance of safety was by cutting away the mainmast, which might lighten the ship. This was done therefore immediately; and a large wave fortunately carried the mast and yard clear away, by which the ship worked with considerably less strain and violence. The wind and waves too, now became ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... work daintily, Captain Ratlin," said he who was evidently an officer, and who had been standing by the mainmast, but ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray |
