United States or Cuba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly still; its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a stout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feet above the level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turns with the whale line.
And all day long the Sybarite trudged on an even keel with only the wind of her way to flutter the gay awnings of the quarterdeck, while the waters sheared by her stem ran down her sides hissing resentment of this violation of their absolute tranquillity.
Her cob-pipe was not suffered to go out and with Connie's help she kept the six small Cavendishes from risking life and limb in the keel boat, toward which they were powerfully drawn. Despite these activities she found time to call to Betty and Hannibal on the cabin roof. "Jump down here; that ain't no fittin' place for you-all to stop in with them gentlemen fightin'!"
It is unnecessary to follow the "Rover" in the windings of that devious and apparently often uncertain course, during which his keel furrowed more than a thousand miles of ocean, and during which more than one cruiser of the King was skilfully eluded, and sundry less dangerous encounters avoided, as much from inclination as any other visible cause.
But when he heard where the gold ring lay, he sat and wept the whole day till evening, when the sun began to dance north-westward into the sea. Then the thirteenth cormorant arose, and flew right over the island. There was nasty weather during the third winter. There were manifold wrecks, and on the keel of a boat, which came driving ashore, hung an exhausted young lad by his knife-belt.
Upon further examination, we found that, besides the leak, considerable damage had been done to the bottom; great part of the sheathing was gone from under the larboard bow; a considerable part of the false keel was also wanting, and these indeed we had seen swim away in fragments from the vessel, while she lay beating against the rock: The remainder of it was in so shattered a condition, that it had better have been gone; and the fore foot and main keel were also damaged, but not so as to produce any immediate danger: What damage she might have received abaft could not yet be exactly known, but we have reason to think it was not much, as but little water made its way into her bottom, while the tide kept below the leak which has already been described.
"Now see here: first I give the proper order, as if somebody else was giving it to me, and I was the man at the wheel: 'Hard-a-lee, do you observe; now look, I put the helm down as far as I can jam it, there; look now, how that turns the boat and brings her up into the wind, you see the sails begin to shiver, the wind is blowing right in your faces now; now we have turned nearly round; the boat, you see, has come up on an even keel, level, you know; now look out sharp for your heads there, the boom is going to jibe over to the other side; there, don't you see we've turned round, that house over there near the beach that was almost ahead of us is now behind us.
As the boat's keel grated upon the beach, the prisoners were ordered by sufficiently significant gestures none of them understanding a single word of Spanish to climb over the side and make their way up the beach.
"He want t' know if Waylan Ranga fellah has ever stay here, dis house he ever go back Cabin House tepee on hill night dey keel leetle boy?" Even then, Eleanor did not realize the drift of the handy man's activities. She thought perhaps, he, too, might be anxious about Wayland. "What did you tell him, Calamity?"
Had we indeed strained our voices till they cracked, no one would have heard us on board the ship. The dark pyramid of canvas seemed to reach up to the very clouds as she flew along, careering before the gale. In another moment I thought we should have been run down, and struggling under her vast keel, but my eye had deceived me.
Word Of The Day