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Updated: May 14, 2025
That I would find one seemed for a good while unlikely; for I searched a score and more of wrecks, and on every one of them the binnacle either was empty or the needle entirely rusted away.
He stood composed and clear and cool as the morning, without sign of doubt or conscience of wrong, now peeping into the binnacle, now glancing at the sunny sails, where swayed across and back the dark shadows of the rigging, as the cutter leaned and rose, like a child running and staggering over the multitudinous and unstable hillocks. She turned from him. "Good morning, my lady!
Did it occur to you to take the bearing of the spot where you thought you saw those flashes?" "Yes, sir, it did," answered Henderson. "I stood, just for a second or two, to see if there was any more comin': and then, not seein' anything, I went straight to the binnacle and took the bearin', which I found to be nor'-west and by west, half west."
'We shall have a rising tide, anyway. If the fog lasts can you manage in a fog and dark? 'The dark makes it no more difficult, if we've a light to see the compass and chart by. You trim the binnacle lamp no, the riding-light. Now give me the scissors, and don't speak a word for ten minutes. 'Foghorn? 'Yes, and the whistle too. 'A gun? 'What for? 'We're after ducks. 'All right.
To eyes new from the electric illumination of the hold, the blackness was positive, with the palpable quality of an element, relieved alone by the dull glow of the binnacle housing the gyroscope telltale, from which the faintest of golden reflections struck back to pick out a pair of seemingly severed fists gripping the handles of the bridge steering wheel with a singular effect of desperation.
The binnacle stands directly in front of the wheel. It is a species of box, firmly fixed to the deck, in which is placed the compass. It is completely covered in, having a glass window, through which the man at the wheel can observe the course he is steering. The capstan stands on the main-deck, sometimes near the centre of the vessel, at other times near the bow or the stern.
The main tops'l was set, and when the squall struck, the rotten old topmast went by the board 'Kerrash-o! 'Course splinters flew like all possessed, and one of 'em, about a foot long, sailed past Nat's head, where he stood heavin' his whole weight on the wheel, and lit right on the binnacle, smashin' it to matches.
Then, in the darkness to starboard and port, two darker shapes shot by the two halves of the ship she had cut through; and from one of these shapes, where still burned a binnacle light, was heard, high above the confused murmur of shouts and shrieks, a sailorly voice: "May the curse of God light on you and your cheese-knife, you brass-bound murderers."
The man's eyes glistened wildly in the binnacle light as he jumped round to the other side and spun round the wheel. I walked to the break of the poop. On the overshadowed deck all hands stood by the forebraces waiting for my order. The stars ahead seemed to be gliding from right to left.
Jonas Uggleston nodded his head and exchanged a peculiar look with the Frenchman. "Let's get ashore," he said. "You, Bill, I'll come out again by and by. Get her fast to the buoy." Binnacle Bill growled and crept behind us boys to watch his opportunity, and give us each a nod, a wink, and a furtive shake of the hand.
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