United States or Cameroon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A second and a third followed, rolling aft, so as to almost bury the vessel, sweeping away the men who clung to the cordage and guns, and carrying many of them overboard. I had quitted the gangway, where there was no hold, and had repaired to the main bitts, behind the stump of the main-mast.
This stopped his pursuers, for they stumbled over the cordage and became entangled with it. The confusion gave Laudonnière a few minutes' respite in which he escaped through a breach in the ramparts, and took refuge in the forest. A few others fleeing this way and that escaped likewise.
It has been pointed out by botanists, as one of Nature's most graceful retributions, that, in the building of the ship, the apparent balance of vegetable forces is reversed, and the herb becomes master of the tree, when the delicate, blue-eyed flax, taking the stately pine under its protection, stretches over it in cordage, or spreads in sails.
They saturated the sails and the cordage in the same manner, and laid trains of combustible materials through all parts of the vessel, so that when fire should be set in one part it would immediately spread every where, and set the whole mass in flames at once. They towed this ship, on a windy day, near to the enemy's works, and on the side from which the wind was blowing.
Now here, sir, is some cordage that was only brought in fresh last week from the ropemaker's; how'll that do, sir?" "Ah!" said the captain, examining it critically, "that is nearer the mark, decidedly. That ought to do for you, ought it not, Mr Chester?" turning to me. "Perfectly well, sir," I replied. "I should be quite satisfied to be served with rope of that quality."
When the captain was passive in the hands of his foe, the cockswain produced sundry pieces of sennit, marline, and ratlin-stuff, from his pockets, which appeared to contain as great a variety of small cordage as a boatswain's storeroom, and proceeded to lash the arms of the conquered soldier to the posts of his bed, with a coolness that had not been disturbed since the commencement of hostilities, a silence that seemed inflexible, and a dexterity that none but a seaman could equal.
From below came the steady throb of the engines, and from outside the whisper of the waves and of the wind through the cordage. A barefooted sailor pattered by to the bridge. Schnitzel bent toward me, and with his hand pointed to his throat. "I've got papers on me that's worth a million to a certain party," he whispered. "You understand, my notes in cipher." He scowled with intense mystery.
One of the most curious features in a Brazilian forest is the vegetable cordage, or sipos, which hang down from every branch, like slack ropes from the rigging of a ship. Jerry and I several times could not resist having a good swing on them, while the doctor was hunting about for his specimens. Their roots are in the ground.
The English ships, it appears, were furnished with stages, which could be let down on the decks of the vessels they were attacking, so as to form a bridge across into them. Foglietta's ship was at length disengaged from her enemy by the dexterity of a sailor, who cut the cordage with which the stage had been secured to her side.
The Indians showed them how to make a kind of cordage, and their shirts and bedding were sewn together into sails. At last their crazy little craft was afloat, undoubtedly the first vessel built on the Atlantic seaboard of America.
Word Of The Day