"Mizzen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ranged up on the quarter and tried to board, but was obliged to sheer off, with the loss of many men and a bowsprit shot away. The Vice-Admiral tried to board at the bow, but with no better success, losing a foreyard and mizzen-mast. For five hours the engagement lasted, but the small-arm men in the Caesar's tops fired so well that the pirates could hardly serve their guns. The crew showed a wonderful spirits cheering loudly at every successful shot, till the discomfited pirates bore up, leaving the Caesar to pursue ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... end foremost, which before was the stern. The one we now saw wrought in this manner. The sail is latteen, extending to a latteen yard above, and to a boom at the foot; in one word, it is like a whole mizzen, supposing the whole foot to be extended to a boom. The yard is slung nearly in the middle, or upon an equipoise. When they change tacks they throw the vessel up in the wind, ease off the sheet, and bring the heel or tack-end of the yard to the ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... Vice-Admiral's. The Admiral was in the centre of the line, which consisted of eleven line of battleships with three tiers of guns, two large frigates, and one large corvette. The Rear-Admiral's flag was at the mizzen of the last ship. We anchored safely in the harbour of Alexandria at 11 A.M. The men-of-war in the harbour were all dressed with flags, and over the houses of the Consuls floated the flags of their ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... job; for frequently he was obliged to stop and hold on with all his might for several minutes, the ship pitching so as to make it impossible to do anything else at that height. The yard at length came down safe, and after it the fore and mizzen royal yards were sent down. All hands were then sent aloft, and for an hour or two we were hard at work, making the booms well fast, unreefing the studding sail and royal and skysail gear, getting rolling-ropes on the yard, setting up the weather breast-backstays, and making other ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... but at one time the captain thought he should have had to cut away the mizzenmast. We were reduced literally to bare poles, and lay-to under a piece of tarpaulin, six times doubled, and about two yards square, fastened up in the mizzen rigging. All day and night we lay thus, drifting to leeward at three knots an hour. In the twenty-four hours we had drifted sixty miles. Next day the wind moderated; but at 12 we found that we were eighty miles north of the peninsula and some 3 degrees ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... through the white cloud of smoke the musket-balls, and the still deadlier clothyard arrows, whistled and rushed upon their venomous errand. Down went the steersman, and every soul who manned the poop. Down went the mizzen topmast, in went the stern windows and quarter galleries; and as the smoke cleared away, the gorgeous painting of the Madre Dolorosa, with her heart full of seven swords, which, in a gilded frame, bedizened the Spanish stern, was shivered ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... any ship would venture against them so near Boston, and could not believe the Maid of Provence an enemy. He thought her an English ship eager to welcome them, but presently he saw the white ensign of France at the mizzen, and a round shot rattled through the rigging ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... herself in any ordinary sea, and come about quicker than most of her type. She is fast, has sound timbers and sheathing that fits her like a skin, and her mainmast and bowsprit are particularly fine spars of Oregon pine; her mizzen doesn't count for much. Let me mention the newest of patent capstans—I put this into her myself—cabins panelled in teak and pitch-pine and cushioned with red morocco, two suits of sails, besides a big ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... much larger, and did not belong to Palos. She was called a "nao," or ship, and was of about one hundred tons burden, completely decked, with a high poop and forecastle. Her length has been variously estimated. Two of her masts had square sails, the mizzen being lateen-rigged. The foremast had a square foresail, the mainmast a mainsail and maintopsail, and there was a spritsail on the bowsprit. The courses were enlarged, in fair weather, by lacing strips of canvas to ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... head, The great Flag-Ship led, Grandest of sights! On her lofty mizzen flew Our Leader's dauntless Blue, That had waved o'er twenty fights— So we went, with the first of the tide, Slowly, mid the roar Of the Rebel guns ashore And the thunder of each ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... saile, and lost sight of the Island of Cyprus, and the 15. day we were likewise at Sea, and sawe no land: and the 16. day towards night, we looked for land, but we sawe none. But because we supposed our selues to be neere our port, we tooke in all our sailes except onely the foresaile and the mizzen, and so we ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... We'll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o' the Line: Till we come as a ship o' the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer, Lifting again from the outer main with news of a privateer; Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Admiralty, Heaving his head for our dipsey-lead in sign that we keep the sea. Then fore-sheet home as she lifts to the foam — we stand on the outward tack, We are paid in the coin of the white man's trade — the bezant ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... her mizzen-peak was a red flag, with a turreted white castle in the middle, which looked foreign enough, and made me ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... at the very instant that our adventurer began his charge. The unknown knight was so sensible of the seasonable interposition, that, riding up to our hero, "Brother," said he, "this is the second time you have holp me off, when I was bump ashore.—Bess Mizzen, I must say, is no more than a leaky bum-boat, in comparison of the glorious galley you want to man. I desire that henceforth we may cruise in the same latitudes, brother; and I'll be d—ned if I don't stand by you as long as I have a stick standing, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... dashing the jib-boom into the water with its load of demented human beings. The mainmast followed by the board before we had doubled our distance from the wreck. Both trailed to port, where we could not see them; and now the mizzen stood alone in sad and solitary grandeur, her flapping idle sails lighted up by the spreading conflagration, so that they were stamped very sharply upon the black add starry sky. But the whole scene from ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... Poseidon (of seventy-four guns), and the management, as a condition of engaging Mr. Orlando B. Sturge (who was exacting in details), had mounted it, at great expense, with a couple of lifelike guns, R. and L., and for background the overhang of the quarter-deck, with rails and a mizzen-mast of real timber against a painted cloth representing the rise ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... off. The necessity for prompt obedience and exertion was urgent. The flames had now gained the lower rigging, and ascended to the tops; they darted furiously from the ports, flashing from the quarter gallery round the mizzen of the Intrepid, as her stern dropped clear of the ship. To estimate the perils of their position, it should be borne in mind, that the fire had been communicated by these fearless men to the near neighborhood of both magazines ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... thought so much in the past week. In any case he did not linger by the way, but walked direct to the cuddy or saloon, which we entered by a deeply encrusted, sun-cracked scuttle, just forward of the mizzen-mast. So here we were, at length, at the ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... captain,' replied the wretch, 'and put his head at the main topgallant masthead—and we will put the first-mate's head at the mizzen, and the boatswain's at the fore. The other convicts who are not with us in the matter we shall put on shore at some island, and leave them to shift for themselves, they are worth nothing. The ship is a good prize, for the captain has a large sum of money on board to take out for the East ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... voyage. And now, having plundered the ship of what was portable and fit to hand out, I began with the cables; and cutting the great cable into pieces, such as I could move, I got two cables and a hawser on shore, with all the iron-work I could get; and having cut down the sprit-sail yard, and the mizzen yard, and everything I could to make a large raft, I loaded it with all those heavy goods, and came away. But my good luck began now to leave me; for this raft was so unwieldy, and so overladen, that after I was entered the little cove where ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... away under this, carryin' on very heavy, 'cause she were headin' west-nor'west, which were a good course, till eight bells in the arternoon watch, when the sea gittin' up so tremendiously we had to furl the reefed mainsail and mizzen topsail and close reef the fore and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... rose over the tumult, and his boat crashed into the waist of the ship just as Brian leaped up into the mizzen-chains. His feet gained hold on a triced-up port, and as he looked down he saw a swell heave up the two boats, then bring them down together with a ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... fifteen; and it was quite in the enemy's power to fulfil his other prediction, by keeping Hotham in hot water during the winter. In the middle of November the "Agamemnon" had to go to Leghorn for extensive repairs, and remained there, shifting her main and mizzen masts, until the 21st of December. Nelson, who had endured with unyielding cheerfulness the dangers, exposure, and sickliness of Calvi, found himself unable to bear patiently the comfort of quiet nights in a friendly port, while hot work might chance outside. "Lying in port is misery ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... dejection. He was very tired suddenly; he dragged his feet going off the poop. Before he left it with nearly an hour of his watch below sacrificed, he addressed himself once more to our young man who stood abreast of the mizzen rigging in an unreceptive mood expressed by silence and immobility. He did not regret, he said, having spoken openly on this very ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... that is the best way, Tom. We must make the best allowance we can for the wind and the set of tide, otherwise they will never drift a line down to us. She won't hold together long. Her stern is gone as far as the mizzen, so we must be quick ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... she was a French frigate by the cut of her canvas and the appearance of her hull; at last, when she hoisted her colours and fired a gun to windward, we had no doubt about the matter. She was hove to, with her mizzen-topsail aback and the main-topsail shivering, waiting for us. This showed that her captain was a brave fellow, and would give us some trouble before we were likely to make ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... up, Newman and I were ordered aloft on the mizzen. The stiffs were useless aloft on such a night, and the fore and main were given the handful of ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... would join us also, Mr. Seymour, after the watch has been called, and you can leave the deck. Let Mr. Wallingford have the watch; he is familiar with the bay. Tell him to take in the royal and the fore and mizzen topgallantsails if it blows heavily," he continued, after a pause, and then, ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the Italian centre. He rammed first the "Re d'Italia," then the "Palestro," but both ships evaded the full force of the blow, and the Austrian flagship scraped along their sides, bringing down a lot of gear. The mizzen-topmast and gaff of the "Palestro" came down with the shock, and the gaff fell across the Austrian's deck, with the Italian tricolour flying from it. Before the ships could clear an Austrian sailor secured the flag. It would ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... we were ashore, and by this time we had also knocked away the ugly and hindering false work on bow and stern, so that with her lifting foreyards which would have done for a sloop-of-war, and on her driving fore and aft sails which could have served the mizzen of a two-thousand-ton bark, the Bess was now herself again. And she had need to be for the ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... whole width of the northern pier, and soon reached a small house situated at its extremity, inhabited by the harbour-master. The wind freshened, and the "Jeune-Hardie" ran swiftly under her topsails, mizzen, brigantine, gallant, and royal. There was evidently rejoicing on board as well as on land. Jean Cornbutte, spy-glass in hand, responded merrily to ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... not, and watched the twilight, And the glimmer of the skylight, That shot across the deck; And the binnacle pale and steady, And the dull glimpse of the dead-eye, And the sparks in fiery eddy That whirled from the chimney neck. In our jovial floating prison There was sleep from fore to mizzen, And never a star had risen The hazy ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the navy of France was signed and sealed by the fight of Trafalgar. In the heat of the action, a ball, fired from the mizzen-top of the Redoubtable, struck Admiral Nelson on the left shoulder, when he instantly fell. "They have done for me, at last, Hardy," said he, ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... at the prow, one at the stern, This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists, Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen; ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... suddenly stood still, and a great white giant seems to spring upon our weather-bow and to leap on board. We hear the crash and feel the shock, and presently the water comes pouring aft,—and Captain Cope calls out to reef topsails,—double-reef fore and mizzen,—one reef in the main. The mates are in the weather-rigging before the word is out of the captain's lips, to take the earings of their respective topsails; and then follows the rush of men up the shrouds and out along the yards. The sails are slatting and flapping, and one can hardly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... at four in the morning, is a fine time to see the stars, if one be but properly awake. Overhead, Orion has reached his height, and is now striding towards the western horizon. The Dog-star is high over the mizzen truck, and Canopus, clear of the weather backstays, is a friend to a drowsy helmsman. The Southern Cross is clearing the sea-line, and above it many-eyed Argus keeps watch over the Pole. Old friends, all of them, companions of many a night watch on leagues of lonely sea. A ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... could fall overboard, from a midshipman to an anchor. Ours was the only ship that had this device; we were very proud of it, and had been anxious to give its powers a practical test. This thing was lashed to the garboard-strake of the main-to'gallant mizzen-yard amidships,[19] and there was nothing to do but cut the lashings and heave it over; it would do the rest. One day the cry of 'Man overboard!' brought all hands on deck. Instantly the lashings were cut and the machine flung joyously ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... done it without Scudamore. He jumped a most wonderful jump from our jib-boom into her mizzen chains, when our grapples had slipped, and we could get no nearer, and there he made fast, though the enemy came at him with cutlasses, pikes, and muskets. By this means we borded and carried the ship, with a loss as above reported. When I grew faint from a trifling ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... as I said, was a fresh one, with a sea in the bay that kept the Suffolk rolling like a porpoise. A heavier lurch than ordinary sent her main channels grinding down on the mackerel boat's gunwale, smashing her upper strakes and springing her mizzen mast as ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... carried a wireless apparatus which had been specially installed for her polar voyage. The aerials stretched from her main to mizzen mast and a small room, formerly a storeroom, below the raised poop containing the cabins had been fitted up for a wireless room. In this the boys had spent a good deal of time during their convalescence from ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... full of men, standing in groups under the shade of the sails to leeward; and on the poop were three or four officers in uniform and straw hats. One of these last stood for some time gazing at the brig—one hand resting on the ratlines of the mizzen shrouds, and the other slowly swinging a trumpet backward and forward. Presently an officer with a pair of gleaming epaulets on his shoulders mounted the poop ladder, touched his hat, and waved his hand toward the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Gloucester shore. Before they had gone a quarter of a mile, a third and larger vessel came sweeping into view, her two rows of ports showing her to be a line-of-battle ship. Barely was she clear of the land when a string of small flags broke out from her mizzen rigging, and almost as if by magic, the yard arms of all three vessels were alive with men, and royals, top gallants, and mainsails with machine-like precision were dewed up and furled, and each ship, stripped ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... a Chinese lady at her toilette; a third, a globe of gold-fish. On this deck were cabins for passengers and supercargoes, the doors painted with different devices. Above was the lofty poop-deck, with one of the rudder-windlasses on it, and the mizzen-mast, fifty feet long, and placed on one side, in order to allow the tiller to work when in shallow water. The main-mast was ninety-five feet in length, and ten feet in circumference at the bottom. It was one spar ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... that day, a sailor at work on the mizzen-topsail yard of an English ship moored within the distance of a cable's length from the Dolphin, accidentally fell from the yard. As he fell he caught hold of the main brace, and was suspended for a minute over the water. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... time to swing himself back into the mizzen-shrouds before the sea broke over her and left the decks bare. The old ship pounded over the bar in an hour or so, and drifted up here on to the beach where she is now. Every man on board was saved except the cap'n. He 'went with her,' ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... warning came too late, for the vessel had taken the ground, which evidently shoaled up with great abruptness. Her fore, main, and mizzen topmasts snapped like carrots with the sudden check to her speed, and came tumbling down with their attendant wreckage, thus adding to the already great confusion on deck, and, what was worse, killing two men, whom they could ill spare, ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... way, and feathers fixed in their heads. Although they appeared friendly, it was impossible to persuade any of them to come on board. However, as the vessels had cast anchor, the captain had the sails furled, took in the topmasts, and unrigged the mizzen mast of the Resolution, in order to allow of repairs. Barter with the Indians soon commenced, and the most rigorous honesty prevailed. The objects offered were bear and wolf skins, and those of foxes, deers, and polecats, weasels, and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... main and mizzen sheets!" ordered the captain, to bring the yacht round and get a leeward launch for Nos. ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... tulgether an' watched ut comun', a-prayun' like we thot she would no break un passun' us. But ut was no tull be. Ot the last, when she rose up like a mountain, curlun' above the stern an' blottun' out the sky, the mates scattered, the second an' third runnun' for the mizzen-shrouds an' climbun' up, but the first runnun' tull the wheel tull lend a hond. He was a brave men, thot Samuel Henan. He run straight un tull the face o' thot father o' all waves, no thunkun' on humself but thunkun' only o' the shup. The two men was lashed tull the wheel, ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... intelligible only to a sailor, which would take the light yard men aloft, furl the sail, and probably cast reflections on the stowage of the bunt. Anything connected with the anchor was a kick. The mainmast was consecrated to the left half, and the mizzen to the fullback. ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... had spencer masts and trysails on fore and main, and a spencer mast on the mizzen for a spanker; he illustrates these as having royal poles, but with no royal yards crossed.[9] The smokestack is described as pivoted. The mainstay is double, setting up at deck, near rail, and forward of the foremost ...
— The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model - United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80 • Howard I. Chapelle
... set in the hope of catching what breeze might come to disturb the flat calm, the Eleanor Jones' main and fore masts were ripped out of her as if by a giant's hand. The crew managed to cut the wreckage away before it had pounded a hole in her side, and with what canvas they could set on the mizzen the captain attempted to drive her before the wind. But naturally enough the ship had no steerage-way and simply revolved in the ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... them began spinning tough yarns respecting the hardships of a sea life—what a horrible bore it was to keep night watches, or any watch at all, and you are sure, said one of them, to catch the fever and ague after you have been four hours walking under the draught of the mizzen stay-sail; and, added another, to be mast-headed for three hours with your face to windward by those tyrants, the second and third lieutenants. They both ought to be turned out of the Service for tyranny and oppression, and as to the last he does ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... Flag—first, because the Alfred was in the port of Philadelphia, and we find from the record (American Archives, Vol. IV, page 179) that the day signal of the fleets on February 17, 1776, at the Capes of the Delaware were to be made by using the "Grand Union Flag at the mizzen peak," which was to be lowered or hoisted according to the information intended to be given under the code ...
— The True Story of the American Flag • John H. Fow |
