United States or Ukraine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


To drift on the tide in a fog is a very different thing to sailing through it at ten miles an hour on a strong breeze, and the steersman had no thought to spare for anything but his sails. Two men were keeping the look-out in the bows. Another the leadsman was standing amidships peering over the side into the mist. Still Barebone waited.

I was sorry to be leaving. When the winch began to clank, as the cable was hove in, I gathered up my lead-line, and went to the leadsman's dicky, or little projecting platform, on the starboard side. I was to be the leadsman that night, and as we should soon be moving, I made the breast-rope secure, and stood by.

We were surrounded by reefs, a light breeze, and fair depth of water called out by the leadsman, 2, 2 1/2, 2, 3 fathoms, until after some time we got into deeper water, and passed out of the Bay in safety. Not a fire had been seen on the shore all night, nor was there a native to be seen this morning from the vessel. We passed numerous islands, until the Piper Islands came in sight.

Jim immediately guessed that Admiral Grau had, like a prudent man, had a leadsman at work on board his ship, and that the Peruvian skipper had suddenly found himself in danger of running aground through standing so close inshore. The two hostile warships then eased down to half-speed, and kept on a course parallel with the shore, and at a distance of about a mile away from it.

To drift on the tide in a fog is a very different thing to sailing through it at ten miles an hour on a strong breeze, and the steersman had no thought to spare for anything but his sails. Two men were keeping the look-out in the bows. Another the leadsman was standing amidships peering over the side into the mist. Still Barebone waited.

The leadsman of the Santa Maria, who has been finding no bottom with his forty-fathom line, suddenly gets a sounding; the water shoals rapidly until the nine-fathom mark is unwetted, and the lead comes up with its bottom covered with brown ooze.

An hour later, when the cook had sent out his call for the first half, Code made Ellinwood stay on deck and bring the schooner to an anchorage after sounding. The sounding lead is a long slug, something like a window-weight, at the bottom of which is a saucer-shaped hollow. The leadsman, a young fellow from Freekirk Head, took his place on the schooner's rail outside the forerigging.

I had not arrived at this reviving certainty before the breakers were already close aboard, the leadsman at his station, and the captain posted in the fore cross-trees to con us through the coral lumps of the lagoon. All circumstances were in our favour, the light behind, the sun low, the wind still fresh and steady, and the tide about the turn.

Would they ever have returned home if he had not read the stars? Smack! an egg hit him between the eyebrows. "Leadsman, you're a braggart!" said the miller. "We've known that for a long time; we knew it when you wrote to the paper saying the Great Man was another Humboldt!" Now another of the leadsman's weaknesses gained the upper hand.

As I hauled in, I again tasted the umbrella, and another question came to me: "What 'ave you do? Why 'ave you do zat?" I swore under my breath. "Are you asleep there leadsman?" The mate was biting his finger-ends. I sent the lead viciously into the sea. "Quarter less seven, sir." "Another cast, smartly, now." Rapidly I hauled in, humming an old ballad to myself.