Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 3, 2025
The decks had been swept, the windlass oiled and made ready to heave up the anchor; the big tow-rope lay in long bights along one side of the main deck, with one end carried up and hung over the bows, in readiness for the tug that would come paddling and hissing noisily, hot and smoky, in the limpid, cool quietness of the early morning.
When I tell you I found that yellow thing snooping around the davits, and three bights of the boat-fall loosened out, plain on deck you grin behind your collar. When I tell you she padded off forward and evaporated flickered back to hell and hasn't been seen since, then why, you explain to yourself that I'm drunk.
So he arose from the stone and did off his war-gear, casting Throng-plough down into the grass beside him, for he had been minded to bathe him, but the slumber was still on him, and he stood musing while the stream grew stronger and pushed off first one of his turfs and then another, and rolled two or three of the stones over, and then softly thrust all away and ran with a gush down the dale, filling all the little bights by the way for a minute or two; he laughed softly thereat, and stayed the undoing of his kirtle, and so laid himself down on the grass beside the stone looking down the dale, and fell at once into a dreamless sleep.
One evening, towards the close of one of the most bitter days of the month of January, 1690, something unusual was going on in one of the numerous inhospitable bights of the bay of Portland, which caused the sea-gulls and wild geese to scream and circle round its mouth, not daring to re-enter.
The Castlereagh gave singular proofs of its violence, as if its waters, confined in the valley, had a difficulty in escaping from it. We had not travelled two miles, when in crossing, as we imagined, one of its bights, we found ourselves checked by a broad river. A single glimpse of it was sufficient to tell us it was the Darling.
The wireless operator had thus far failed to raise the Kennebunk, although he called every hour. Mr. MacMasters and the warrant officer studied the chart anxiously. There were shallow waters hereabout, and although the steamer demanded little depth, there were bights between the reefs that were dangerous.
The mizzen topsail, which was a comparatively new sail, and close reefed, split from head to foot, in the bunt; the fore topsail went, in one rent, from clew to earing, and was blowing to tatters; one of the chain bobstays parted; the spritsail yard sprung in the slings; the martingale had slued away off to leeward; and, owing to the long dry weather, the lee rigging hung in large bights at every lurch.
Bights of buntline and other ropes were dangling from above, only waiting to be swung from. A bell was hung just forward of the foremast. In half a moment Dick was forward hammering at the bell with a belaying pin he had picked from the deck. Mr Button shouted to him to desist; the sound of the bell jarred on his nerves.
I was swept irresistibly off my feet and hurled in among the crowding men; I was jostled and dragged to and fro; and as the sea closed over my head, ends and bights of rope wreathed and twisted themselves about my limbs and body; I received several violent blows from what I supposed were floating pieces of wreckage; I found myself, all in a moment, inextricably entangled in a raffle of cordage which tightened itself about my body until I could move neither hand nor foot; and then there came a great singing in my ears, and I felt that I was being dragged irresistibly downward.
The ship took a heavy list, and some sea broke on board, but though it was rising fast, there was not yet enough to do much harm. The floating bights of canvas hove us round broadside to the run of the waves, and needs must that we cleared away the wreck as soon as might be.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking