United States or Bosnia and Herzegovina ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
From the centre of the vestibule floor sprang the grand staircase a magnificent example of sculptured aethereum leading to the pilot-house and promenade deck above; and immediately opposite the foot of the staircase, forming, in fact, one side of the vestibule, was a bulkhead of aethereum decorated with a series of Corinthian pilasters surmounted by a noble cornice, from which sprang the coved ceiling of the apartment.
They were nearly jerked out of the water or flung into it, and then went boiling along in the steamer's wake. A boat-hand drew in the line, and they climbed out, swaying and floundering through a cloud of spray, and all the passengers crowding back to see. They went forward and up on deck, and the captain spoke to Long from the pilot-house, calling him Trapp.
A moment later the Mars, the biggest airship Tom Swift had ever constructed, arose from the earth like some great bird, and soared aloft. "Well, Tom, we're moving!" cried Ned Newton, clapping his chum on the back, as he stood near him in the pilot-house. "We're going up, old sport!" "Of course we are," replied Tom. "You didn't think it wouldn't go up, did you?"
With a few powerful strokes of an axe, he broke off the top of the pilot-house, bound two or three planks to it with ropes, and dragged the mass to the bulwarks. "The minute this goes," he then said to her, "you go after it, and I follow. Keep still when you rise to the surface." She left the shrouds, took hold of the planks at his side, and they heaved the rude raft into the sea.
The boys are somewhat amused by their grandsire's state, being no doubt familiar with it, but a very grim-looking old lady who sits against the pilot-house, and keeps a sharp eye upon all three, and who is also doubtless familiar with the unhappy spectacle, seems not to find it a joke.
"Do you want me to put you all into the trough?" Mulhatton, the mate, stumbled into the pilot-house and glared at the cook. "Artie," he cried, "you go below, or I'll just gently heft you down! I went in to git grub just now and 't was all on the floor. Go on now git!" And Arthur went, grumbling and sighing that a man's stomach should govern his temper.
If he was surprised, as doubtless he was, he did not manifest it in the slightest degree; for he was a sailor, and it was a part of his gospel to obey the orders of his owner without asking any questions. No doubt he thought of his wife and children as he walked forward to the pilot-house to execute his order, for he had been away from them for a long time.
A low house occupied her entire width, and extended along her whole length except at the curve of her bows, where there was room left for a small deck. A structure with a door and windows, that was somewhat larger than the pilot-house, rose from the upper deck near its after-end.
About this time Christy observed that Captain Stopfoot left the pilot-house, where he had remained from the first; but he paid no attention to him. He had three men on the quarter-deck of the steamer, one in the pilot-house with him, and five more in other parts of the vessel.
La Foy was no longer the insolent, mocking Frenchman that he had been, and the two chief foreign engineers seemed to have lost some of their reason when the lightning struck them. "But it was a mighty lucky and narrow escape for us," said Ned, as he and Tom sat in the pilot-house the second day of the return trip. "That's right," agreed his chum.
Word Of The Day