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Mast   Listen
noun
Mast  n.  The fruit of the oak and beech, or other forest trees; nuts; acorns. "Oak mast, and beech,... they eat." "Swine under an oak filling themselves with the mast."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mast" Quotes from Famous Books



... and before long some of my strength came back, and a little of my spirit with it, and I went about settling myself more securely on my poor sort of a raft. What I had hit upon, I found, was a good part of a ship's mast; with the yards still holding fast by it and steadying it, and all so clean-looking that it evidently had not been in the water long. The main-top, I saw, would give me a back to lean against and also a little shelter; and in that nook I would be still more secure because the ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... life of it since I parted from you, Marsden," he observed. "I was not allowed to act even as an officer, but was made to serve before the mast, and was kicked and knocked about by all the men who chose to vent their spleen on me. I had no idea that the vessel was what she was, a slaver and a pirate, and every man on board would have been hung if they could have been proved ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... the next day, and Eleanor was sitting as usual on deck looking over the waters in a lovely bright morning, when a sound was heard which almost stopped her heart's beating for a moment. It was the cry, rung out from the mast-head, ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... rare realities Of which they were the mirrors. Now the light, Which was their life, burst through the cloud of thought Keen, irrepressible. It was a room Within the summer-house of which I spoke, Hung round with paintings of the sea, and one A vessel in mid-ocean, her heaved prow Clambering, the mast bent, and the revin wind In her sail roaring. From the outer day, Betwixt the closest ivies came a broad And solid beam of isolated light, Crowded with driving atomies, and fell Slanting upon that picture, from prime ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... of water, holding together sixteen gallons, and the forecastle bread barge with biscuits enough for three meals a day per man for ten days. They managed also to steal four hams, and each man brought pipes, tobacco, and matches. A harpoon with some line, an old galley frying-pan, mast, sail and oars, and some blankets completed the equipment For they took no compass, though they made several attempts to get at one slung in the cabin, and tried at first to take one out of the poop binnacle; but the officer ...
— "The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton - 1901 • Louis Becke

... her approach to the town she was unfortunately met by a furious mob, composed principally of fishermen and their wives, who seized upon her with the intention of swimming her. They forced her away to the sea-shore, and tying a rope around her body, secured the end of it to the mast of a fishing-boat lying alongside. In this manner they ducked her several times. When she was half dead, a sailor in the boat cut away the rope, and the mob dragged her through the sea to the beach. Here, as she lay quite insensible, a brawny ruffian took down the door of his ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... dearest Brother, Who dost well to me intend, Thou mine Anchor, Mast, and Rudder, And my truest Bosom-Friend. To Thee, ere was earth or heaven, Had the race of man been given; Thou, e'en me, poor guest of earth, Chosen hadst ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... proud to ask questions, so we simply stood there and watched—what do you suppose?—a hospital ship! lighted from water line to truck with hundreds of electric lights; strings of them running from mast-head to mast-head and dozens along the sides, fitted with reflectors to throw the light down so as to show the broad green stripe which is prescribed by the Geneva Convention. Then we both laughed. Little did we ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride

... the national flag be displayed at half-mast upon all the buildings of the Executive Departments in this city until after the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... was hauled on the wind, the mast unshipped, and, harpoon in hand, Captain Sol stood braced for the affray. The ripple seemed alive with the ghostly creatures, their white forms darting here and there, while the puffing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... disgusting intruders. Cincinnati is the city of pigs. As there is a railway system and a hotel system, so there is also a pig system, by which this place is marked out from any other. Huge quantities of these useful animals are reared after harvest in the corn-fields of Ohio, and on the beech-mast and acorns of its gigantic forests. At a particular time of year they arrive by thousands—brought in droves and steamers to the number of 500,000—to meet their doom, when it is said that the Ohio runs red with blood! There are huge slaughterhouses behind ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... if von Kluck was right. A big cargo steamer, now dimly discernible to the boys, was rolling in the trough of a heavy sea, urged on by a vicious wind from the northwest. Her range lights showed clearly at the mast heads. A gleam of red indicated that the vessel was showing her port side. With every roll great masses of water boarded the weather rail, sweeping the decks of ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... in the town was half-mast high, multitudes thronged the streets, and every window and balcony was crowded. Every head was uncovered. The procession wound its way from the Palazzo Gosleth down the declivity into the city under ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... and gave activity to business men, the flush times were followed by depression. To secure the construction of a railway to the mast yard, Carleton subscribed to the stock, and, under the individual liability law of that period, was compelled to take as much more to relieve the company from debt. Soon he found, however, in spite of hard work for both himself and his wife, that farming and lumbering together ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... and at first none observed my presence. All was seemingly confusion and panic, and the skipper's orders were being tardily obeyed. I moved forward a little, and recognized Captain Rudstone holding to the snapped-off end of the mast. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... communicated to the Government and to the country, and in proper respect to his memory I hereby order that the several Executive Departments be closed to public business and their flags and those of their dependencies throughout the country be displayed at half-mast on the ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson

... drowned. Thus, gradually, originated the traditional career of the men of this family,—"a gray-headed shipmaster in each generation," as the often-quoted passage puts it, "retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast." But the most eminent among these hardy skippers is Daniel, the son of farmer Joseph, ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... cross the mast is set up, and on this is fastened the sail, and between the sail and the tiller is a sort of shallow box. This is the cabin of the ice boat, where the people sit when they are sailing over the ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope

... the drag-ropes. The interior arrangement consisted only of two thwarts; a locker at each end for the nautical and other instruments, and for the smaller stores; and a very slight framework along the sides for containing the bags of biscuit and our spare clothes. A bamboo mast nineteen feet long, a tanned duck sail, answering also the purpose of an awning, a spreat, one boat-hook, fourteen paddles, and a steer-oar, completed each ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... concern had been for the boys, brought his hand down on his knee earnestly. "Then I'm with you, lads, till the last mast carries away. You're the pilot in these waters, Charley. What course shall we steer ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... her cousin, "if you knew anything of nautical matters, you would see that it was not a cutter yacht, for she has more than one mast; though, certainly, as you saw her, she seemed to have but one, for she was just coming ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... considerable coaxing on the part of the Captain, and more clawing on the part of Tommy, before he could be convinced that the cabin was as safe as the mast. At last he gave in and came down, and as the boat left the harbor he was purring contentedly, folded safely in the ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper

... fine network of rain drawn like gauze over the reality of things, lay a great square, filled with a human ocean flowing in from all the adjoining streets, immobilized around a lofty column which towered above that sea of heads like the gigantic mast of a sinking ship. Cavalry in troops, with drawn sabres, artillery in batteries lined the sides of an open pathway, a complete warlike host awaiting him who was soon to pass,—perhaps to try to rescue him, to carry him off by force from the redoubtable foe in whose power he was. ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... When Sir J. Duckworth passed the Dardanelles to attack Constantinople, in 1807, his fleet was dreadfully shattered by the immense shot thrown from the batteries. The Royal George (of 110 guns) was nearly sunk by only one shot, which carried away her cut-water, and another cut the main-mast of the Windsor Castle nearly in two; a shot knocked two ports of the Thunderer into one; the Repulse (74) had her wheel shot away and twenty-four men killed and wounded by a single shot, nor was the ship saved but by the most wonderful ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various

... situation of an object with the ship, when that object is placed in the arc of the horizon contained between a line at right angles with the keel and the point of the compass which is directly opposite the ship's course. An object—as a man overboard—is described by the look-out man at the mast-head as abeam, before, or abaft the beam, by so many points of the compass. As a vessel seen may be "three ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... are, too, and the boat is new and handsome, graceful with the beautiful lines of a northern shipwright's designing. She has mast and sail and one steering oar, but neither rowlocks nor other oars to fit in them. One of the men is pacing quietly up and down the sand, as if on the quarterdeck of a ship, and the other rests ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler

... year he worked with his father on a farm, and then left to seek his fortune in the world, with all his effects carried under his arm, wrapped in a cotton handkerchief. His first entry on independent life was as a deck-hand, before the mast of the schooner Liberty. In that capacity he remained two years, and then, having acquired a good knowledge of seamanship, was made mate, holding that rank two years. In 1839, he rose a step higher, and for two seasons was master of ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... straight stem, and began to cut it down. The boys gathered around him, wondering what it could be for. Forester smiled, and worked on in silence, declining to answer any of their questions. Marco said it was for a mast, he knew, but when they asked him where the sail was, he seemed perplexed, and could ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott

... of their proud crusade Up to the mast-head of their flag-ship soared: On one side knelt the Holy Mother-maid, On one the crucified Redeemer poured His blood, and all their kneeling hosts adored Their saints, and clouds of incense heavenward streamed, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... said, woe worth our first meeting, or woe worth the time that Iason arriued with his ship at my fathers cittie in Colchos, when he tooke me away with him, & not so farre off as to curse the mountaine that bare the pinetree, that made the mast, that bare the sailes, that the ship sailed with, which caried her away. A pleasant Gentleman came into a Ladies nursery, and saw her for her owne pleasure rocking of her young child in the cradle, and sayd to ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... lie in this case, went to them, if peradventure he might awake them, and cried, You are like them that sleep on the top of a mast, for the Dead Sea is under you, a gulf that hath no bottom: awake, therefore, and come away; be willing also, and I will help you off with your irons. He also told them, If he that goeth about like a roaring lion, comes by, you will certainly become ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... make no invasion upon the quarters forward of the four men before the mast—common seamen, and take good care that master and mate shall have ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the Vanguard shook through all her timbers oaken; It was like the shock of Doomsday,—not a tar but shuddered hard. All was hushed for one strange moment; then that awful calm was broken By the heavy plash that answered the descent of mast and yard. ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone

... parishes under the parish priests, and was with difficulty dissuaded, though he was ill, from encouraging in person the warriors on the battlefield itself. A sacred banner was given them under which to fight—the standard from which this most famous battle of Stephen's reign gets its name—a mast erected on a wagon, carrying the banners of St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverly, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon, and with a pyx at the top containing the Host, that, "present in his body with them, Christ might be their leader in the ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... East. It was recognised as Eastern produce, the moment we entered the harbour. Accordingly, the gay little Sunday boats, full of holiday people, which had come off to greet us, were warned away by the authorities; we were declared in quarantine; and a great flag was solemnly run up to the mast-head on the wharf, to make it known to ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... flood into Jekyl sound. General Oglethorpe, who was at Simons's fort, fired at them as they passed the sound, which the Spaniards returned from their ships, and proceeded up the river Alatamaha, out of the reach of his guns. There the enemy having hoisted a red flag at the mizen top-mast-head of the largest ship, landed their forces upon the island, and erected a battery, with twenty eighteen pounders mounted on it. Among their land forces they had a fine company of artillery, under the command of Don Antonio de Rodondo, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... Boy unlashed the sled-load, and pulled off the canvas cover as the Colonel came back with his mast. Between them, with no better tools than axe, jack-knives, and a rope, and with fingers freezing in the south wind, they ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... June. The expected ships had joined Commodore Warren, and his fleet of eleven men-of-war bore into the harbor. Signals had been agreed upon between the two commanders. The brush was piled upon Green Hill ready to send its columns of flame into the air when the Dutch flag at the mast-head of Warren's ship should announce that he ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various

... ceremony for the inhabitants of Luchon and its neighbourhood, and local tradition assigns it to a heathen origin." In the midsummer fires formerly kindled on the Place de Grve at Paris it was the custom to burn a basket, barrel, or sack full of live cats, which was hung from a tall mast in the midst of the bonfire; sometimes a fox was burned. The people collected the embers and ashes of the fire and took them home, believing that they brought good luck. The French kings often witnessed these spectacles and even lit the bonfire with their own hands. In 1648 ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... of no great value: they entered the country, and saw everywhere the effects of fire, which they supposed was intended to drive wild animals from the coast. They could not discover a tree suitable for a mast, and were unsuccessful in obtaining water. A small map, which sketched the form of the coast with considerable exactness, accompanied the account of this voyage, and tended to awaken the French to ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... and maybe not. Maybe he's that way with every girl under forty. I've never seen him work, but I've seen him in the midst of that Newport bunch and they've got me lashed to the mast for clothes, ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... dogs as he felt he could bear for that day, he felt free to go down to the dockyard and go on learning how ships were built. Sebastian looked up at the voice and ceased the blows with which his axe was smoothing a great tree trunk that was to be a mast, and smiled in ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit

... equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... take advice,' was my reply. 'He has nailed his colours to the mast, and means, I believe, to stay in River Hall till he kills the ghost, or the ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... said Apollo. And they readily harkened to him and obeyed him. First they unfastened the sheets and let down the sail and lowered the mast by the forestays upon the mast-rest. Then, landing upon the beach of the sea, they hauled up the ship from the water to dry land and fixed long stays under it. Also they made an altar upon the beach of the sea, and when they had lit a fire, made an offering of white ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... color, shifting as the sky over it shifted. The slaver was in high good humor. His crew seemed to be under perfect control and went about their work mostly in silence. They rarely sang, as sailors sing, but Robert, watching them on spar or mast, although he knew little about ships, knew that they were good sailors. He realized, too, that the crew was very large for a vessel of its size, and he believed that he ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... published tragedies. Orlando's speech at the beginning of Act ii., "O that my curse had power to wound the starres," &c., in which he compares himself, with epic elaboration, to "an argosie sent rychlye fourthe" and now "meanelye retourninge without mast or helm," to my thinking closely suggests Chapman. It is not quite impossible that the present play may be Chapman's lost "French tragedy" (entered on the Stationers' Registers, June 29, 1660), a copy of which was among the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... then turn over on your back and lie extended at full length, with arms extended straight out upwards over the head, with back of fingers touching the ground; (4) then raise up both legs from the waist until they stand straight up in the air, like the mast of a ship, your upper-body and arms remaining in the last position named. Lower the legs and raise them several times; (5) resume position 3, lying flat upon the back at full with arms extended straight out upward, over the head, with backs of fingers touching the ground; ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji

... used to study in angry dogs, and snapshot and measure: but he continued to gaze across the waters. After half a minute or so he glanced at me, looked seaward again, and observed quietly, 'It don't seem probable they would run mast-down in the time. And yet I don't know: 'twas blowing powerful fresh just after midnight. Hull-down, a boat might easily be; and supposing sail lowered, what's a boat's mast better to pick up than a needle ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... as the ship was sailing along, and we unknowing where we were, behold, the captain came down [from the mast] and casting his turban from his head, fell to buffeting his face and plucking at his beard and weeping and supplicating [God for deliverance]. We asked him what ailed him, and he answered, saying, 'Know, O my masters, that the ship is fallen among shallows and drifteth upon ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... that voluptuous song. But he, the much experienced man, who wished to be experienced in all, and use all to the service of wisdom, desired to hear the song that he might understand its meaning. Yet, distrusting his own power to be firm in his better purpose, he caused himself to be bound to the mast, that he might be kept secure against his own weakness. But Orpheus passed unfettered, so absorbed in singing hymns to the gods that he could not even hear those sounds ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... North Dakota's congealed envelope, with the smoke from the main-house chimney rising three hundred feet into the air, a snow-white column straight as a mast, Charley stalking majestically ahead, while we ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... across it. "Dunton gave it me. He was up there late last season well over on the western side. A north-easterly gale fell on them, and took most of the foremast out of her. I understand they tried to lash on a boom or something as a jury mast, but it hadn't height enough to set much forward canvas, and that being the case she wouldn't bear more than a three-reefed mainsail. Anyway, they couldn't do anything with her on the wind, and as it kept heading them from the east she sidled away ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... Pedro de Valdez, commander of the Andalusian squadron, having got his galleon into collision with two or three Spanish ships successively, had at last carried away his fore-mast close to the deck, and the wreck had fallen against his main-mast. He lay crippled and helpless, the Armada was slowly deserting him, night was coming on, the sea was running high, and the English, ever hovering near, were ready to grapple with him. In vain did Don ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... on and on, Mast and oar and rudder gone, Fatal danger for each one, We helpless as ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... if I obstinately continued on the coast of England two days longer, we should all be taken. The Vengeance having chased along shore to the southward, Captain Cottineau said he would follow her with the prizes, as I was unable to make much sail, having that day been obliged to strike the main-top-mast to repair damages; and as I afterward understood, he told M. de Chamillard that unless I joined them the next day, both the Pallas and the Vengeance would leave that coast. I had thoughts of attempting the enterprize ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... quantities of nuts which they store for winter use. The early settlers of California reported also that many tribes of Indians in that part of the United States lived almost wholly upon acorns. Before the great oak forests of this country were cut down for lumber, millions of hogs were fattened on mast, and the price of pork depended more upon the acorn crop than on the corn crop. The peasantry of southern France and northern Italy during half the year make two meals a day ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various

... and death seems to come on every wave. The men are stupefied with terror. The thought of parents, and kindred, and pledges left at home, comes over their minds. Ceyx thinks of Halcyone. No name but hers is on his lips, and while he yearns for her, he yet rejoices in her absence. Presently the mast is shattered by a stroke of lightning, the rudder broken, and the triumphant surge curling over looks down upon the wreck, then falls, and crushes it to fragments. Some of the seamen, stunned by the stroke, sink, and rise no more; others cling ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... best paid of all the working men, absolutely think nothing of coming from the Bush into Melbourne, with twenty or thirty pounds in their pocket, and spending every farthing of the sum—in one night—champagne to the mast-head. The innkeepers make fortunes rapidly. Shall I tell how much Boniface will draw in a week? No—for you will not believe me. Certainly as much as many an innkeeper in a country town would draw in twelve months. An innkeeper's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... and wet, for a gusty drizzle had set in, and I got the spindrift of the big waves. There I balanced myself, as we lurched into the twilight, hanging on with one hand to a rope which descended from the stumpy mast. I noticed that there was only an indifferent rail between me and the edge, but that interested me and helped to keep off sickness. I swung to the movement of the vessel, and though I was mortally cold ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... sunset. Even the deepening twilight can not disguise the evidences of a terrible "sea-change." Not a trace of paint or gilding remains on the wave-worn, shattered timbers. Sails rent and cordage strained tell tales of many storm-gusts, or, perchance, of one tornado; and see! her flag is flying half-mast high: the corpse of the Pilot is on board. Let us stand aside, lest we meet the passengers as they land. It were worse than mockery to ask how the yachting trip ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... shouted to the men to lower the sail, which was bellying and flapping violently, but before his orders could be obeyed there was a crash. The mast snapped off at the slings of the yard, and the wreck fell over the bow of the boat. All hands were employed for some minutes in getting the sail on board and furling it to its yard, which was laid lengthways along the thwarts. It was found that three men standing ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... his ears with the music of the tom-tom, had said: "That dug-out is the best boat that ever can be built by man; the pattern of that came from on high, from the great god of storm and flood, and any man who says that he can improve it by putting a mast in it, with a sail upon it, is an infidel, and shall be burned at the stake;" what, in your judgment—honor bright—would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... mast; you, Master Lancelot, go to the helm. Stand by to hoist the sail, Master Ben," cried Tom; and in half a minute we had the mast stepped, the sail hoisted, and the sheet hauled aft, when, again getting out the oars, we glided rapidly ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston

... an erratic officer, had lost half a year's pay. The magnitude of the disaster was almost national, he felt, and sadly, shyly, he said: "Will you have the flag at half-mast, Colonel?" ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... experience in blackbirding before I went pearling in the Paumotus. Otoo and I were on the beach in Samoa—we really were on the beach and hard aground—when my chance came to go as recruiter on a blackbird brig. Otoo signed on before the mast; and for the next half-dozen years, in as many ships, we knocked about the wildest portions of Melanesia. Otoo saw to it that he always pulled stroke-oar in my boat. Our custom in recruiting labor was to land the recruiter on the beach. The covering boat ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... which the canoe had a few minutes previously vanished— and at length, when only a short half-mile intervened between us and the beach—which projected boldly nearly half-way across the channel—the main-mast of a schooner crept into view beyond the concealment of the hitherto intervening bush and trees; and bringing our glasses to bear upon her, we detected signs of great bustle and confusion on board her, and made ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... fulfilled their obvious function, and, carried by the wind to unoccupied regions, extended the limits of the forest; many might be washed away by rain into streams, and be lost; but a large portion must have remained, to accumulate like beech-mast, or acorns, beneath the trees ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... voices I have heard. Just as the white cloud, at the sunrise, glows With roseate colours, so the pallid hue Of Helen's cheek, like tinted sea-shells grew. Through mine, his hand caused hers to tremble; such Was the all-mast'ring magic of his touch. Then we sat down, and talked about the weather, The neighbourhood—some author's last new book. But, when I could, I left the two together To make acquaintance, saying I must look After ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... away, and commanded Lieut. Morris to point the gun, having more confidence in his skill than in that of the gunner. The young officer aimed the gun carefully, and as it was fired three cheers arose from his crew, as they perceived the pirate's mizzen-mast ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... caught in such a violent storm that the vessel was lifted out of the water, so high that it could not come down again. Then they came to another island, round and shining. Here they found Hippogypi, men riding upon vultures—birds so large that each of their feathers was like the mast of a ship. The voyagers join the Hippogypi in a battle against the inhabitants of the sun, and have various allies—some mounted on fleas about the size of twelve elephants, and spiders, each as big as one of the Cyclades islands. The travellers were taken prisoners, and conveyed to the Sun, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... when I went on deck, I found the carpenter preparing a flour barrel for the despatches. A quantity of sand was put in the bottom to make it stand up straight in the water. A pole was set up in the barrel, like the mast of a vessel, to the top of which a blue-light was attached, to be ignited when it was thrown overboard, in order to enable the despatch steamer to find it readily. In the daytime a red rag is sometimes attached to it, I was told by the carpenter. The ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... sheds; there were the chutes for horses and mules; there, beyond them, the now abandoned office and waiting-room; and there, still glistening white and towering, the semaphore signal-mast of the railway; and then and there, sure and sudden, there dropped the black arm straight across and above their glistening path in the ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... with two small children, pushed a rough-looking and somewhat unwieldy little boat away from the shore in the neighbourhood of Poughkeepsie, and turned its prow up the Hudson. A rude sail was hoisted, but it flapped lazily against the slender mast. The two men betake themselves to the oars. The sun was just showing his face above the eastern woods as they pulled out into the river. The boat was crowded with sundry household matters—all carefully packed up and stowed ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... men were standing with ropes on the shore; but I only saw, as the tempest moaned, to swell again, one figure on a bending mast, between sea and sky, and one in a frail shell ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... from Cape Ann Light, and forty-one from Boston Light. It stands about twenty rods from the edge of the bank, which is here formed of clay. I borrowed the plane and square, level and dividers, of a carpenter who was shingling a barn near by, and, using one of those shingles made of a mast, contrived a rude sort of quadrant, with pins for sights and pivots, and got the angle of elevation of the bank opposite the light-house, and with a couple of cod-lines the length of its slope, and so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... point where it reached the bank there was a village of considerable size, and several fishermen's boats were moored alongside. Stepping into one of these, they unloosed the head-rope and pushed out into the stream. The boat was provided with a sail. The mast was soon ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... there praying he heard a slight noise in the rigging just above his head. Looking up, he saw a ball of fire running along a yardarm near the top of the mast. The sight was so strange that he forgot his prayer and stared with open-mouthed wonder. To his astonishment, the ball grew brighter and brighter, and then suddenly began slipping down the mast, all the time increasing ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman

... from ship to ship during the day, the marine uses flags of different forms and colors, and flames. Between ships and the land there are used what are called semaphore signals, which are made by means of a mast provided with three arms and a disk placed at the upper part. The combinations of signs thus obtained, which are analogous in principle to those of the Chappe telegraph, permit of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... bay, and anchored off Fort George. In a short time the startling tidings was circulated, that she brought a quantity of stamps. It was like sounding an alarm-bell, and the streets became thronged with excited men, while all the provincial vessels in the harbor lowered their colors to half-mast, in token of mourning. In anticipation of this event, an organization of men had been formed, called "Sons of Liberty." They at once assembled, and resolved at all hazards to get hold of those stamps. They had caused the act itself to be hawked about the streets as "the ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... other, and did not amalgamate at all. Mr. P. went out to the extreme end of the bowsprit and gazed down into the deep blue sea, wondering whether its color was really due to excess of salt, or the presence of cuprate of ammonia. HORACE climbed to the top of the mast, where he sat sadly, observing the swindling waves, which came all the way from Europe, and didn't pay a cent of tax when they landed. Mr. HAGGARTY went to the stern, where he employed his time in cleaning out the sailor-man's ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various

... at Washington for that miracle, Protection, which would start the boom. To see the shipping yards teeming again with the building of ships by the hundreds and thousands, to see them go out again over the seas with our flag at the mast and our sailors below. To feel the new call go over the nation—"Young men, come east and west, come out! The first place on the oceans can still be yours!" This was my father's ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... that voyage were filled with such happiness that I trembled for fear it should be snatched from me. During that time we had fair weather and favouring winds. Then we ran into a gale that lasted for days, and drove us far out of our course. One mast went by the board, the other was cut away to save the ship, and, while in this helpless condition, she struck at night, what I afterwards learned to be, a mass of floating ice. At the time all hands believed us to be on the coast, and the crew, taking ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe

... wind, there was no necessity that the fleet should be scattered. When the fog the next day was dissipated, the Joli was not in sight. Toward evening, however, the ship was again seen. In a few days they discovered an inlet, which La Salle carefully examined from the mast-head. He judged it to be the Bay of Appalachicola, then called Espiritu Santo, on the Florida coast. They therefore pressed on westerly, hoping soon ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... into short pieces, served as nails and staples with which to draw together the gaping seams. Old rags from the house and parts of the men's clothing supplied calking, upon which the tar was smeared. While one man shaped mast and oars, another cut Esteban's shelter tent into a sail, and fitted it. A stiff, sun- dried cowhide was wet, then stretched and nailed to the gunwales at the bow, forming a sort of forward deck to shelter the sick man from the sun and rain. Jacket climbed the near-by cocoa-palms and ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... not. Boys never do, but the harm comes. Now I'm going to march you two lads right up before the mast; and you're going to apologize to the widow. If you don't, why, I reckon a cat-o'-nine-tails will fit ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster

... and William safely placed in it; but, just as he was rowed off he heard the cries of the ladies who were left behind, and caused the oarsmen to turn back for them. So many drowning wretches crowded into it, as soon as it came near, that it sank with their weight, and all were lost. Only the top-mast of the ship remained above water, and to it clung a butcher and the owner of the ship all night long. When daylight came, and the owner knew that the king's son was really dead, and by his fault, ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge

... seen. When it was nearly abeam of the brig he gave his orders, and Wasub hurried off to the main deck. The helm was put down, the yards on the main came slowly square and the wet canvas of the main-topsail clung suddenly to the mast after a single heavy flap. The dazzling streak of the ship's wake vanished. The vessel lost her way and began to dip her bows into the quick succession of the running head seas. And at every slow plunge of the craft, the song of the wind would swell ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... stupifies and besotts the soul, that a man that is far gone in Drunkenness, is hardly ever recovered to God. Tell me, when did you see an old drunkard converted? No, no, such an one will sleep till he dies, though he sleeps on the top of a {50c} Mast, let his dangers be never so great and Death and damnation never so near, he will not be awaked out of his sleep. So that if a man have any respect either to Credit, Health, Life or Salvation, he will not be a drunken man. But the truth is, where this sin gets the upper ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... in store. Gentlemen, I warn the English portion of this audience that these are very dangerous men. Remember that it was an undergraduate of Harvard University who served as a common seaman two years before the mast, {17} and who wrote about the best sea book in the English tongue. Remember that it was one of those young American gentlemen who sailed his mite of a yacht across the Atlantic in mid-winter, and who sailed in her to sink or swim with the ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... Luther repudiated these canonical laws on the subject of marriage, and separated its civil from its ecclesiastical aspect. He maintained that marriage, as the basis of all family rights, lies entirely within the province of the State, and mast be regulated of necessity by the civil government. 'Marriage and the married state,' he declared in his Traubuechlein (10, 721), 'are civil matters, in the management of which we priests and ministers of the Church must not intermeddle. But when we ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... those who suffer in silence. She made no moan, and no reply to Jephson's letter; but she did visit Merton, and, practically, gave him to understand that she was ready to start as a Corsair on the seas of amorous adventure. She had nailed the black flag to the mast: unhappy herself, she was apt to have no mercy on the sentiments and affections ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... the which this Cion drew vp to it. The Marriners reported to vs that it had this propertie, that if it should happen to haue lighted on any part of the shippe, that it would rent and wreth sayles, mast, shroudes and shippe and all in manner like a wyth: on the land, trees, houses, in whatsoeuer else it lighteth on, it would rent and wreth. [Sidenote: A coniuration.] These marriners did vse a certaine coniuration to ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt

... children went passengers in a packet; on board of which, as she afterwards learned, there was not even a compass. A storm arose and they were tossed to and fro for nine hours in imminent danger. The rudder and the mast were carried away; every thing on deck thrown overboard; and at length the vessel struck in the night upon a rock, on the coast of Ayr, in Scotland. The greatest confusion pervaded the passengers and crew. Among a number of young students, going ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... she can want with us," mused Jack, as he ordered a signal to be run up on the small mast, indicating that they would speak ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose

... windward with a moderate breeze and a little head-sea they appeared to have the advantage. The sails are from twelve to fifteen feet in length and a yard wide—made of coarse matting of the leaf of the coconut-tree stretched between two slender poles. The mast is stepped with an outward inclination into one of three or four holes in a narrow shifting board in the bottom of the canoe, and is secured near the top to a slender stick of similar length made fast to the outside part of the outrigger; a second pole is then erected stretching ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... door leading into the kitchen and stepped out into the garden. Miss Drewitt, after a moment's hesitation, followed, and after one delighted glance at the trim old garden gazed curiously at a mast with a barrel fixed near the top, ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... him raw; I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark, I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother shark; I had lapped him round with cocoa husk, and drenched him with the oil, And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze above my spoil; I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side, and tasselled his beard i' the mesh, And spitted his crew on the live bamboo that grows through the gangrened flesh; I had hove him down by the mangroves brown, where the mud-reef sucks ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... attraction in These waters to the imaginative power, That links the viewless with the visible, And pictures things unseen. To realms beyond Yon highway of the world my fancy flies, When by her tall and triple mast we know Some noble voyager that has to woo The trade-winds, and to stem the ecliptic surge. The coral groves—the shores of conch and pearl, Where she will cast her anchor, and reflect Her cabin-window lights on warmer waves, And under planets brighter than our own: The nights ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various

... gathered. Government officials, merchants, and missionaries, were all there. The boys of the Institute were drawn up on the beach, policemen were posted in the streets, and the pupils of Duke Town school continued the line to the cemetery. All flags flew at half-mast, and the town was hushed and still. Great crowds watched the procession, which moved along in silence. The coffin was draped with the Union Jack, and was carried shoulder high by the boat boys, who wore black singlets and mourning ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... out. It belonged to some Basques who had sailed her around from California. I must say when I saw her I felt inclined to renig, for she wasn't more'n about twenty-five feet long, was open except for a little sort of cubbyhole up in the front of her, had one mast, and was pointed at both ends. However, Schwartz said she was all right. He claimed he knew the kind; that she was the sort used by French fishermen, and could stand all sorts of ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... carried past. There was a chain down the middle of the pier in the winter to prevent people from being washed off, and she had stood clinging to this, and seen a great ship, with one ragged sail fluttering from a broken mast, carried before the wind right on to the pier-head, which it struck with a crash that displaced great blocks of granite as if they had been sponge-cakes; and when it struck, the doomed sailors on its decks sent up an awful shriek, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... adulation may indeed have been more acceptable to the vulgar objects of it than that of the Roman panegyrist, who, even while flattering, could not shake off the fetters of the great dialect in which he wrote; but the efforts in this department by Cicero, Ovid, Horace, Pliny, and Martial, mast be allowed to be master- achievements to which it would be hard to find an equal in the literature of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... evening I climbed the mainmast, and, standing on the cross-trees, saw the sun set amid a blaze of fiery clouds. The wind was strong and bitterly cold, and I was glad to slide back to the deck along a rope, which stretched from the mast-head to the ship's side. That night we cast anchor ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... of old lay buried. A garden bloomed about that house with every hue of flowers; and there was an orchard of papaia on the one hand and an orchard of bread-fruit on the other, and right in front, toward the sea, a ship's mast had been rigged up and bore a flag. As for the house, it was three stories high, with great chambers and broad balconies on each. The windows were of glass, so excellent that it was as clear as water and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ground, instead of standing there, horrified, hypnotized. Yes, he would escape, run off to sea somewhere—anywhere! But he wouldn't go home; no, never that! He would ship around the Horn, like the hero in that dreadful book, Two Years Before the Mast. He would run away that night, before the story spread over the whole school. He would never face them. He hated the school, he hated the Green, he hated every one connected ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... "Rain comes down And hushes the town. And where is the voice that I heard crying? Snow settles Over the nettles. Where is the voice that I heard crying? Sand at last On the drifting mast. And where is the voice that I heard crying? Earth now On the busy brow. And where is the ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... as we have shown, was at first a spontaneous association of merchants; but, after it had been regularly organized, admission into it became extremely difficult. A candidate had to enter, as it were, "before the mast," to undergo a long probation, and to rise slowly by his merits and services. He began, at an early age, as a clerk, and served an apprenticeship of seven years, for which he received one hundred pounds sterling, was maintained at the expense of the company, and furnished ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... voyage. Fashion had not then made slaves and idlers of our young men of wealthy parents, and it was, indeed, thought no disgrace for a gentleman of position to send his sons on one of these voyages, to do duty before the mast. It taught them how to face danger and endure hardships. It developed their manliness, and made them more self-reliant. It gave them a knowledge of the world they could not get elsewhere, and laid a ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... was declared in order to protect our commerce, again the New England States wanted to secede. Bells were tolled, business was suspended, flags were at half-mast, and the war was condemned in town meetings—from the press and the pulpit. They believed it would ruin rather than protect commerce. So they wanted to run away by themselves. When the administration called for militia these ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... the harbour that low to the tide of it lean; The lights on the port and the starboard, the red and the green, Mixing and mingling with mast lights that move in the air, And deck lights and wharf lights and lights upon pier-head and stair; An edging of gold where a liner steals by like a thief; The giant grey gleam of a searchlight that swings like a leaf; And ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various

... most seasons of the year, but now a shallow lake, the surface of which was broken by occasional fences, misty clumps of bushes, or the tops of dead weeds. The nearest Briskow derrick was dimly visible, its floor awash, its shape suggestive of the battle mast ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... my money, Mrs. Cliff, which, when compared to what your share must have been, was like a dory to a three-mast schooner, but still quite enough for me, and, perhaps, more than enough if a public vote could be taken on the subject, I was in Paris, a jolly place for a rich sailor, and ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... sights in the world than to see stout fellows striving with all their strength to hew down the mainmast of a goodly ship. The fall of a great tree in a forest preaches its sermon, but not with half the poignancy of a noble mast which men who love their vessel are compelled to cast overboard. As the axes rose and fell it seemed to me as if their every stroke dealt me a hurt at the heart. As the white wood flew it would not have surprised me if blood had followed upon the blow—as I have read the like concerning ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... genius, and consisted of some boards, cut in an elliptical form (as, perhaps, the most convenient), supported by two pieces of iron, parallel to each other, to which the boards were fastened, and running the whole length from bow to stern. In the forward part was rigged a mast, to which was attached a sail, like the mainsail of a sloop, and the whole was controlled by a piece of sharp iron, fixed on the stern in such a manner as to turn like a rudder, and to cut with any required degree of pressure, by means of a lever, into the ice. With this simple regulator ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... enemy's boats, but was brought off by the Pembroke and Richmond. She was so seriously damaged that she had to be sent to Boston for repairs and then returned to England. On the 20th Wolfe joined the up-river squadron in a barge, and in passing the town had his mast carried away by a shot from the Sillery Battery, but no further damage was done. He made a short reconnaissance which led to nothing at the time, but may have had an important influence in the choice ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... treacherous-looking and full of peril to the wary nautical eye. Horrible jagged rocks, and sinister swirlings and foamings of the sea, seem to forbid the approach to them. The Tomtit is hove to—our ensign is run up half-mast high—and we fire our double-barrelled ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... cliff was seen, Where sea-birds hover'd craving; And, all around, the craggs were bound With weeds—for ever waving. And, here and there, a cavern wide Its shad'wy jaws display'd; And near the sands, at ebb of tide, A shiver'd mast was seen to ride, ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor

... At noon suddenly taken with most violent squall at West...this hurricane of wind increased so rapidly and with such fury that we were obliged to let go the best bower and till all 3 anchors bore the strain she dragged a little, struck top-gallant-mast. This squall continued for 4 hours, then settled into a westerly gale with constant thunder and lightning and at intervals very hard rain and also more sea than I supposed possible in this cove. At 11 P.M. parted our warp, my uneasiness at this was not a little however the S.B.* (* ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... meaning of this? The guide said, They talk in their sleep. If you strike them, beat them, or whatever else you do to them, they will answer you after this fashion; or, as one of them said in old time, when the waves of the sea did beat upon him, and he slept as one upon the mast of a ship, 'When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again' (Prov. 23:34, 35). You know, when men talk in their sleep, they say anything, but their words are not governed either by faith or reason. There is an incoherency in their words now, as there was before, betwixt their going on pilgrimage, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... stubbard-tree at the corner of the garden was erected a pole of larch fir, which the miller had bought with others at a sale of small timber in Damer's Wood one Christmas week. It rose from the upper boughs of the tree to about the height of a fisherman's mast, and on the top was a vane in the form of a sailor with his arm stretched out. When the sun shone upon this figure it could be seen that the greater part of his countenance was gone, and the paint washed from his body so far as to reveal that ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... Steadiman and I were borne on her pretty little books in reverse order, and that he was captain there, and I was mate. It was beautiful to watch her with John, and it was beautiful to watch John with her. Few would have thought it possible, to see John playing at bo-peep round the mast, that he was the man who had caught up an iron bar and struck a Malay and a Maltese dead, as they were gliding with their knives down the cabin stair aboard the barque Old England, when the captain lay ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens

... "victory!" the sight of the Christian standard at the mast-head of Ali's ship, the news of his death, which spread from ship to ship, gave new courage to the allies and robbed the Turks of spirit. They fought on, but more feebly. Many of their vessels were boarded and taken. Others were sunk. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... was bright green instead of her sea-stained rusty black, and a broad gilt band ran along her side below the oar ports. A great red and gold dragon from one of the warships of the Danes reared its crest on the stem head, while its tail curved in red and gold over the stern post, and even the mast was painted in red and white bands, and had a new gilt ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... the Needles past, Wight's fairest bowers are flaming fast; From Solent's waves rise many a mast, With swelling sails of gold and red, Dragon and serpent at each head, Havoc and slaughter breathing forth, Steer on these locusts of the north. Each vessel bears a deadly freight; Each Viking, ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with all their mighty hearts aglow, Swept onward like the dawn of doom to triumph at Trafalgar; Then the world was hushed to wonder As the cannon's dying thunder Broke out again in muffled peals across the heaving sea, And home the Victor came at last, Home, home, with England's flag half-mast, That never dipped to foe ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... and Mr. Bice got their horses ready to ride down, and I got the rooms ready, when, in an hour, a Norfolk Island boy rode up to say the flag was half-mast high.' ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... simply by screwing it into place. I undo the bolts holding the skiff to the submersible, and the longboat rises with prodigious speed to the surface of the sea. I then open the deck paneling, carefully closed until that point; I up mast and hoist sail—or I take out my oars—and I ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... upon a mast rear'd far aloft, He bore a very bright and crescent blade, The which he waved so dreadfully, and oft, In meditative spite, that, sore dismay'd, I crept into an acorn-cup for shade; Meanwhile the horrid effigy went ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... commander, but mingled signs of grief with them. At one moment bugles rang out cheerily, at the next they were answered by melancholy trumpet notes, and the wailing fife was heard at intervals between the lively rattle of the drum and the clash of arms. From one mast-head hung a Turkish banner reversed, and from another a long black streamer, the ends of which dipped in the water. In this manner he entered the river of London in his English ship, leaving the Portuguese ship ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... know her port, Though she goes so far about? Or blind astray, does she make her sport To brazen and chance it out? I watched when her captains passed: She were better captainless. Men in the cabin, before the mast, But some were reckless and some aghast, And some ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... for some time been patrolling the North Sea. Soon after 6 o'clock Tuesday morning—there is disagreement as to the exact time—the Aboukir suddenly felt a shock on the port side. A dull explosion was heard and a column of water was thrown up mast high. The explosion wrecked the stokehole just forward of amidship and, judging by the speed with which the cruiser ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... homes and family ties; all seemed to have hopes and love to look to but he—"I alone am alone! The whole world is in love with me, and I'm utterly alone." Alone as a wreck upon a desert ocean, terrible in its calm as in its tempest. Broken was the helm and sailless was the mast, and he must drift till borne upon some ship-wrecking reef! Had fate designed him to float over every rock? must he wait till the years let through the waters of disease, and he foundered obscurely in the immense loneliness he ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... in a second and rushing in pursuit, closely followed by Jim Waters. The fugitive ran for the ratlines leading to the lookout on the central mast. He climbed them like a squirrel, and the man in the cro'nest, amazed at the sight below him, stared at the approaching mutineer, unable to utter a cry. Campo, who, as the moonbeams showed, now had a knife ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... horizon, incessantly and unconsciously, hours before the wagon was due, and, when it came in sight at last, ran his flag up along its mast joyously. ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland

... the Admiralty," said the sea-faring man; "and, if you will glance at this paper, you will see that I have special permission from Whitehall to be mast-headed, or to undertake some other naval manoeuvre ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various

... what Miss Prince has treated me handsome right straight along," the old sailor explained, while the inspector, thinking this not a safe subject to continue, spoke suddenly about some fault of the galley; and after this was discussed, the eyes of the two practiced men sought the damaged mizzen mast, the rigging of which was hanging in snarled and broken lengths. When Nan asked for some account of the accident, she was told with great confidence that the Highflyer had been fouled, and that it was the other vessel's fault; at which she was no wiser than before, having known already ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... him, briefly explained every thing to him. At once all Obed's most generous sympathies were roused. He took the glass, and eagerly scrutinized the vessel. He recognized it at once, as Windham had, to be an English yacht; he saw also that it was waterlogged, and he saw the figure at the mast. But the figure was no longer standing erect, or waving hands, or making despairing signals. It had fallen, and lay now crouched in a heap at the foot of the mast. This Windham also saw. He conjectured what the cause of this might be. He thought that this poor creature had kept up her signals ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... along her upper deck, now mounted rapidly to the mast and rigging, forming one general conflagration and lighting up the heavens to an immense distance round. One by one her stately masts fell over her sides. By half-past one in the morning the fire reached the powder magazine; the looked-for explosion ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... little and blown them towards the shore. As he glanced around, him he gave a shout. Following almost in their track, and some fifty yards away, was a large galley; running before the wind, with a rag of sail set on its mast. ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... turned when, after ending his education at the Salem High School, he was unable to gain admission to the military academy at West Point and follow the soldier career in which it had always been his ambition to shine. He shipped before the mast on an American vessel sailing from New York. Apparently even the hardships of such a common sailor's lot could not dampen his ardour for adventure, for he made a number ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... cases of extreme distress. Accordingly, through the whole of their voyage through the extensive latitudes held by that crown, they never put into any port but in a single instance. In passing near the island of Juan Fernandez, one of them was damaged by a storm, her rudder broken, her mast disabled, and herself separated from her companion. She put into the island to refit, and at the same time, to wood and water, of which she began to be in want. Don Blas Gonzalez, after examining her, and finding she had nothing ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... margin, and threw himself against it and bent it down, and plunged his knife into the straining fibres so that it crackled and splintered in his hand. He leaped to the tree and scaled it as he had often climbed a mast, and he thrust the sapling under the staple, trimming the point down with the knife as he clutched the tree by his knees, and then, catching the young hickory like a lever, he dropped down the pine trunk and got his shoulder under the sapling and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... strange account, and one filled with surprising adventures. In most of the vessels in which she had served, Jack had acted in the steward's department, though she had frequently done duty as a fore-mast hand. In strength and skill she admitted that she had often failed; but in courage, never. Having been given reason to think her husband was reduced to serving in a vessel of war, she had shipped on board a frigate bound to the Mediterranean, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... warm in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... in the steamer, the other morning, all the vessels in the port had their flags displayed at half-mast in token of dissatisfaction with the fate of the harbor bill. You may not recollect that the bill set apart half a million of dollars for the construction or improvement of various harbors of the lakes, and authorized the deepening of the passages through the St. Clair Flats, ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... the unusual disproportion of strength; for of the Dutch flagships, one was blown up, and the other two disabled; a proof of the English bravery, which should have induced Van Trump to have spared the insolence of carrying a broom at his top-mast, in his triumphant passage through the Channel, which he intended as a declaration, that he would sweep the seas of the English shipping; this, which he had little reason to think of accomplishing, he ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... action, and beneficially applies them for the good of that community of which he is a member, may be virtually, though not literally, called the discoverer of a principle. The man that projects, and the man that executes a voyage of discovery, have superior claims to the man at the mast head who first cries out land. The new turn that the discoveries of modern philosophers has given to natural philosophy, requiring a change of names as well as system; unusual words are unavoidably introduced to express new terms ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... fertility of genius, maintained a sanguinary contest against two ships, one of them superior to his own, and under other severe disadvantages, 'til humanity tore down the colors which valor had nailed to the mast. This officer and his brave comrades have added much to the rising glory of the American flag, and have merited all the effusions of gratitude which their country is ever ready to bestow on the champions of its rights ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Madison • James Madison

... piscatorial monster, known as a devil- fish, or briefly devil. It was a legend of my youth that two preachers or ministers of the Presbyterian faith once went fishing in those waters, and having cast out a stout line, fastened to the mast, for shark, were amazed at finding themselves all at once careering through the waves at terrible speed, being dragged by one of the diabolical "monsters of the roaring deep" above mentioned. Whereupon a friend, who was in the boat, burst out laughing. And being ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... saddles swinging from side to side, evidently thinking their tenure more precarious than that on the giddy mast; and wholly unmindful of the expressive gestures, and mournful ejaculations of the bare-legged pursuers. At another time, their antics and buffoonery, as they made unmerciful use of the short sticks with which they were armed, would have provoked a smile. Now our party gazed on these ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... Fuerto Ventura: when off this island, the man at the mast-head reported a wreck in sight, which, as we neared it, appeared to be the wreck of a brig. Strange to say, the captain recognised it as an old acquaintance, which he had seen off Cape Finisterre on his return from China in the Sulphur. If this was not a mistake, it would be evidence ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... rowboat, ready to embark; but, before he did so, he made one more search in the bateau for the pocketbook. The timbers of the ferry-boat were ceiled over on the bottom, leaving a space for the leakage between the inner and the outer planking. Near the mast there was a well, from which, with a grain-shovel, the water was thrown out. Lawry examined this hole, feeling under the planks, and thrusting the shovel in as far as he could. This search was unavailing, ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic

... With mast, and helm, and pennon fair, That well had borne their part; But the noblest thing that perished there Was ...
— Phebe, The Blackberry Girl • Edward Livermore

... all hearers was to last only until some one proved himself able to resist their spell; and here again accounts differ. Homer gives the credit to Ulysses, who stuffed his mariners' ears with wax, and had them bind him to the mast. Apollonius Rhodius, however, in the Argonautica, claims the credit for Orpheus, who saved the expedition of the Argonauts by singing the Sirens into silence, after which the musical damsels fell from their heights and were themselves changed into rocks. If some of our modern musicians were ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... he would get back to where he lost us, and thereafter would guess the only course we could have taken, for the matter of handling the sail would settle that. We could not have gone far ere the wind dropped. Then supposing he picked up our mast?" ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... captain that he had no provision to spare as he was bound to China and was victualled for only one month. He advised them to stay until morning, which they did. But when morning dawned, their own ship was out of sight even from the mast head, and with a fair wind for her to go through the straits of Macassar. Being treated coolly by the captain, they agreed with one voice to leave the ship in search of their own. On leaving the vessel, the captain gave them twelve musket cartridges and a round bottle of brandy, but ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... beaks painted red at prow and stern. The ships had oars, and the warriors manned the oars, to row when there was no wind. There was a small raised deck at each end of the ships; on these decks men stood to fight with sword and spear when there was a battle at sea. Each ship had but one mast, with a broad lugger sail, and for anchors they had only heavy stones attached to cables. They generally landed at night, and slept on the shore of one of the many islands, when they could, for they greatly feared to sail out ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang

... the Commissioners to Count Bundt for having sent the Articles to Milton for translation was that "several other servants of the Council, fit for that employment, were then absent." They mast have referred, in particular, to Mr. Philip Meadows, the Latin Secretary in Ordinary. He had, we find, taken some part in the negotiation in its earlier stage;[1] but, before it had proceeded far, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... court on a celebrated race mare. The basis for the last account, so far as it has any basis at all, lies on statements made nearly half a century after the event, and entirely unknown to Haywood. There is no evidence of any kind as to its truthfulness. It mast be set down as mere fable.] Nothing further was attempted against him. A year later he was elected a member of the North Carolina Legislature; after some hesitation he was allowed to take his seat, and the last trace ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... and dirt in the bow of the boat, and cast into the waves For a moment all flattered themselves that the experiment had been successful—the sail fluttered, swelled a little, and then flapped idly down against the mast. The party were in despair, until, after a whispered consultation together, Julian and Edwin stepped forward as messengers of mercy. In a trice they divested themselves of jacket and vest and made a proffer of their next garment to aid in raising ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... split, When you, and those poor number sav'd with you, Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother, Most provident in peril, bind himself, Courage and hope both teaching him the practice, To a strong mast that liv'd upon the sea; Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back, I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves So long ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... one, and their passion for the other—there were two who maintained a perfect serenity, and looked with quiet eye and smiling face, upon the boiling surge which threatened to ingulf them. The first of these was a young girl, who had been lashed to a mast, against which she leant quite motionless; she was one of those sweet spring flowers, whose bright and joyous aspect shows, that they have known only the sunshine of life's early day; no sorrow as yet had checked those bounding feet, that ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various



Words linked to "Mast" :   mooring mast, mizenmast, topmast, masthead, royal mast, sailing ship, feed, mast cell, jigger, jiggermast, spar, sailing vessel, mizen, mizzenmast, jury mast



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