"Offing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... port of Carpyam they had speech with the inhabitants of the island, and made peace with them, and Carvalho, who was captain-major, gave them the boat of the ship which had been burned: this island has three islets in the offing. Here they took in refreshments, and sailed farther on to the west-southwest, and fell in with another island, which is named Caram, and is in 11 deg.; from this they went on farther to west-southwest, and fell in with a large island, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... the afternoon of this eventful day that the fleet hove in sight, and lay becalmed a few miles in the offing. Mustapha hastened to report it to the pacha, as he sat in his divan, hearing complaints, and giving judgment, although not justice. Now when the pacha heard that the fleet had returned, his heart misgave him, and the more so, as Mustapha was more obsequious and fawning ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Why, guineas is contraband of war—it's treason, sir—and guineas is a cargo that's fought for, sir! I shouldn't have moved with two men in a boat patrol, d'ye think? I should have had the riding officers, and the water-guard, and a revenue cruiser in the offing, and all tight and regular. But you would have all the credit, and where are you? and where's my share? ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... away the ochreous earth lying upon the slopes, descend in muddy torrents into the hollows of the valleys. The Adonis river begins to swell with the ruddy waters, which, on reaching the sea, do not readily blend with it. The wind from the offing drives the river water back upon the coast, and forces it to cling for a long time to the shore, where it forms a kind of crimson fringe.* This was the blood of the hero, and the sight of this precious stream stirred up anew the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... others will, no doubt, say enough, but I may be excused for mentioning one scene that very much struck me, and of which I am now the only (white) one left who was present at it. We were paying a visit for the first time to an island, and—the vessel being safe in the offing—the Bishop asked me if I would go with them as he sometimes did on similar occasions. We pulled in to a small inner islet among a group, where a number of (say 200) natives were collected on the beach. Seeing they looked as if friendly, he waded on shore without hesitation and joined ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... foot of the cliff far beneath, one can sit and ponder on the immensity of the ocean and dream of the lands beyond the horizon. From here the whole seaboard, from Thatcher's Island to York and Wells, is in view; the Isles of Shoals loom up on the horizon, while the offing is dotted with coasters and yachts of every rig and construction. Calm, indeed, must it be when no wind is felt on Boar's Head; and during those exceptional days of the summer, when the land-breeze prevails, the broad verandas around three sides of the hotel afford ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... A.M. the last boat of the five and forty had got to sea. Before midday all had made an offing of eight or ten miles, and had started to shoot their lines. Folk who had watched them creep out of the harbour now gave no further heed, save perhaps that wives may chance to have cast anxious looks seaward now and again. But none dreamt ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... weather. The forecast| |is the work of the weather man, who has some | |reputation locally and elsewhere as a forecaster of | |questionable accuracy. | | | |Cold weather is drifting this way on northwest | |winds, says the weather man, and soon will be hard | |by in the offing, ready to pounce on Indianapolis. | |The fate of Indianapolis is to be the fate of | |Indiana also, and of the entire Middle West, for the| |weather man is no respecter of localities, and when | |he once gets ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... had, in the meantime, remained inactive outside of Massowah, knowing that the co-operation of our vessels would enable us to take the place without difficulty. When those vessels appeared in the offing, several small Abyssinian war-ships steered towards them. A few shots from ours put the enemy's vessels to flight, and the Negus at last understood the situation. However, he still hoped to demolish our wooden ships, until the terrible ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... returned to England, leaving only a frigate and the "Venerable," commanded by Admiral Duncan, with my father as his flag-captain. To deceive the Dutch, they continued to make signals, as if the rest of the fleet were in the offing, till they could return to England; when, without delay, Admiral Duncan and my father went alone on board each ship, ordered the men to arrest the ringleaders, which was done, and the fleet immediately returned to its station off the Texel. At last, on the morning of ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... with his two ships to his station off the Texel, determined if the Dutch came out to fight them. While there he concealed his weakness from the enemy by making signals as though his fleet lay in the offing. England was in imminent danger, and Count Vorontsov (Woronzow), the tsar's ambassador, directed the Russian squadron, then at Yarmouth and under orders for home, to delay its departure and join Duncan until he could be reinforced from Spithead, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... forth on the beach. "Us ain't had no equinoctial gales thees year, not proper like us used to. This season's going to break up sudden and wi' thunder, an' when it du, look out! I'd rather be here now than out in the offing, for all the sea's so calm. Ah!" pointing to a dinghy that was shoving off the beach, "they bwoys 'ould laugh in me faace if I was to go an' say, 'Don' go. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... like a sugar-loaf, with a cross upon it, N.E. by E. the church in the valley S.E. In this valley there are many trees, the high land S.E. from the church, and the entire valley being full of trees. We moored S.E. and N.W. the anchor in the offing being in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... the boats began their return journey, pulling hard while the darkness lasted, so as to make a good offing by daybreak, and also to leave themselves less ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... the first, And so the second midnight to the cliff We went. I mind me how the round moon rose, And how a great whale in the offing plunged, Dark on the golden circle. There we cut A space of turf, and lifted it, and ran Our knife-points sharp into our arms, and drew Blood that dripped into the warm mould and mixed. So there under the turf our plighted faith Starts in the ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... objected to. I know that skipper; his notion of yachting is to lie in what he calls the "offing," where he can be well in touch with his wife and family, to say ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... the most prominent of which is called Bamborough Head. The ships were driven upon the rocks and rocky islands which lay along the shore, and there broken to pieces by the sea which rolled in upon them from the offing. All the stores, and provisions, and munitions of war which Margaret had brought from France, and which constituted almost her sole reliance for carrying on the war, were lost. Most of the men saved themselves, and made their escape to an island that lay near, called Holy Island. But here they were ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... shaken by the severest shocks. From the great wave not immediately following the earthquake, but sometimes after the interval of even half an hour, and from distant islands being affected similarly with the coasts near the focus of the disturbance, it appears that the wave first rises in the offing; and as this is of general occurrence, the cause must be general: I suspect we must look to the line, where the less disturbed waters of the deep ocean join the water nearer the coast, which has partaken of the movements of the land, as the place where the great ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... in the offing," he remarked to his lieutenant, Dominique You, standing beside him. "She has sent off a pinnace with a flag of truce. I go to meet it. Order an ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... entrances to the bay, and Murguia had had his steamer built of light draft especially, to profit by any outlet offering least danger from the vigilant patrol outside. The skipper had already chosen his course. Because of the gale, he calculated that the blockaders would get a considerable offing, lest they flounder mid the shoal waters inshore. He knew too, even if it were not so dark, that a long, foamy line of surf curtained the bay from any watchful eye on the open sea. By the time she reached the beach channels, La Luz had full speed on. Then, knifing the higher ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... leading actors in this political drama. Behind the lines, in the "offing," was the Insurgent Group, young men like Mark Sullivan and John Treacy of Hudson, stout defenders of the liberal wing in the Convention, feeling sullen, beaten, and hopelessly impotent against the mass attack of the machine forces. What a political ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... in a rickety sampan across the harbour of Sourabaya involves numerous collisions with fruit-boats, canoes, and rafts, before reaching the steamer in the offing. Intervals of comparative safety permit cursory observation of the gorgeously-painted praus with upturned stern, curving bamboo masts, and striped sails, the outline of the gaudy boats accentuated by a black line, and producing the effect of huge ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... twelve miles to the eastward of Cape York. The next day, when the gale abated we crossed Admiralty Inlet, and were detained six days on the coast by a strong N. E. wind. On the 25th we crossed Navy Board Inlet, and on the following morning, to our inexpressible joy, we descried a ship in the offing, becalmed, which proved to be the Isabella of Hull, the same ship which I commanded in 1818. At noon we reached her, when her enterprising commander, who had in vain searched for us in Prince Regent's Inlet, after giving us three cheers, received us with every ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... by police. Mr. Stafford King in the offing, waiting outside in a taxi, or probably waiting on the mat," said the colonel in the same tone. "Well, well, you're quite safe ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... now, keep a lookout for the frigate." The day wore away with no news of the ship being in the offing, and the Captain began to fume and fret, so that Nic made an excuse to get away and look out, relieving Solly, stationing himself by the flagstaff and scanning the horizon till his eyes grew weary and his ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... Come along and see if he's coming." They ran out upon the plain, and cheerful exclamations immediately proclaimed the fact that Billy and the old packhorse had at length made their appearance in what Wally called the "offing." ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... expression, lonesome as the interstellar space, and quite as cold, and in all that limitless vastness of the World's Edge, two specks—the hut, its three windows streaming with light, and the tiny schooner rocking in the offing. Over all flared the pallid ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... morning, there, in the offing, heading straight for the island, was The Tattooed Quaker. They hurried to the peak, and the Hermit waved his handkerchief. The signal was seen on deck, and an answering flag scurried up to the mast-head. After breakfast Chimp and his apprentice walked ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... or drive down to Elberon when there is a sea-breeze, especially if there happen to be a dozen yachts in the offing. Such elegance as this watering-place has lies in this direction; the Elberon is a refined sort of hotel, and has near it a group of pretty cottages, not too fantastic for holiday residences, and even the "greeny-yellowy" ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the party reached the locality indicated by Job. The officer could see the steamer which looked, in the gloom of the night, as though she was a craft of about five hundred tons. She was moored in the deep water so far in that she could not be seen by vessels in the offing. On each side of her was a small river steamer, and she seemed not ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... methods must serve to illustrate a week of battle, every hour filled with disorder. The brig Truxillo, consort of the Santa Theresa, had appeared in the offing one morning and hung on in chase with all sail set. All day and night the two ships raced, the one to escape, the other to capture ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... whether the captain's pale face and excited, nervous manner were occasioned by the fears that had been conjured up by the sudden appearance of that strange vessel in the offing, or by the rage and disappointment he felt over the loss of the valuable prize he had so confidently expected to capture. He hauled down the schooner's flag, packed it away in the chest where it was usually kept, and then had leisure to take a look at the crew. Could they be the ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... a good offing, and the mountains of Lebanon began to sink below the horizon in the distance as she bowled along merrily on her north-western course, a long way to the southward of Cyprus, bearing up direct for the Archipelago, a keen observer on board ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... barometer, and the strong northerly winds, induced me to keep the vessel at a considerable offing. During the day the breezes were very fresh, and had it not been for the whale-boat with which I was furnished, I should not have been able to have effected a landing on any part of the coast which came under ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... in his chest, and David had three to add to it. It would be ample to live on till the men could set to work and earn a maintenance for them. No word was spoken of her marriage, but it lay in the offing of their argument as the happy finale that the long toil of the return journey and the combination of ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... before noon next morning four strange sails were seen in the offing, which, before long, were made out to be the dreaded Madagascar pirates, with the Cassandra, Victory, and two prizes they had just taken. The sight of them struck Brown with terror, though a little reflection would have shown him that the pirates would have little ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... in the offing Professor Derrick appeared, fishing. I had seen him engaged in this pursuit once or twice before. His only companion was a gigantic boatman, ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... at this time regarded himself as a potential multi-millionaire. The type-setting machine which for years had been sapping his financial strength was believed to be perfected, and ship-loads of money were waiting in the offing. However, we shall come to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the ocean, in the space between the more distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about it. Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... wind the more the whirl of that tiny propeller tends to keep it in air and with a good September gale thrashing seed out of its cones a pine tree may be planting its kind for miles to leeward. The seed that brushed my cheek this morning made no such offing. Caught in a back eddy it whirled round a sunny glade for a moment, then in a sudden lull spun directly downward to the grass. There again its shape favored it. The first grass spear stopped its spinning and it dived plummet-like out of ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... of January, 1805, that the look-out frigate in the offing signalled to the admiral that the French fleet had put to sea. At that season there was much gaiety, in dances, private theatricals, and other amusements, on board the different ships in the harbour, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... as the clouds broke, about noon, close down on the angry horizon a drift of smoke appeared, shortly resolving itself into a steamer. She lay to in the offing, and through his glasses Glenister saw that it was the Roanoke. As the hours passed and no boat put off, he tried to hire a crew, but the longshoremen spat wisely and shook their heads as they watched ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... turrets an ensign is flying, Which stout hearts are banded till death to uphold; And bold is their crying, and fierce their defying, When trench'd in their ramparts, unconquer'd of old. But lo! in the offing, To punish their scoffing, Brave Napier appears, and their triumph is done; No danger can stay him, No foeman dismay him, He conquers or dies ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... long-ships, the Seamew, and the Osprey and the Erne. Heavy and huge they seemed to him as they lay there, black-sided, icy-cold with the washing of the March waves, their golden dragon-heads looking seaward wistfully. But first had he looked out into the offing, and it was only when he had let his eyes come back from where the sea and sky met, and they had beheld nothing but the waste of waters, that he beheld the Ship-stead closely; and therewith he saw where a little to the west of it lay a skiff, which the low wave ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... under sail by the Porden Islands, across Riley's Bay, and rounding a cape which now bears the name of my lamented friend Captain Flinders, had the pleasure to find the coast trending north-north-east, with the sea in the offing unusually clear of islands; a circumstance which afforded matter of wonder to our Canadians, who had not previously had an uninterrupted ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... tale was told by a hunter bold Of a sealing schooner's crew, Of a midnight raid where the breakers played On reefs that the offing strew. ...
— The Last West and Paolo's Virginia • G. B. Warren
... as sisters whilst thou bidest with me; we shall go down to the sea when the storm begins once more; thou shalt see the billows rushing upon the land like wild, white-maned horses—and then the whales far out in the offing! They dash one against another like steel-clad knights! Ha, what joy to be a witching-wife and ride on the whale's back—to speed before the skiff, and wake the storm, and lure men to the deeps with lovely songs ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen
... were so curious, sometimes, one never knew what would happen in them; and this whole matter of piracy had been so strange and unlooked for that all the while he had been hidden under the sail (where he had retreated by the Skipper's orders as soon as Mr. Bill Hen Pike appeared in the offing), he had been trying to persuade himself that he was asleep, and that the monkeys were dream-monkeys, very lively ones, and that by-and-by he would wake up once more and find himself ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... southeaster. The third day he hove the Sally to; being a stout craft and not overladen she weathered the gale with the loss of a jib, and was about making topsails again when a full-rigged ship was descried in the offing giving signals of distress. Night was coming on very fast, and the sea was yet running too high for a boat to live, but the gallant captain furled his topsails once more to await the morning. It could be seen ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... breaking lazily on the Atlantic. There was not wind enough to move the vapors in the foggy offing, but where the vague distance heaved against a violet sky there were dull red streaks that, growing brighter, presently painted out the stars. Soon the brown rocks of Greyport appeared faintly suffused, and then the whole ashen line of dead coast was kindled, and the lighthouse beacons ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Having gained a good offing, we bore up at daylight, and stood in for Rossel Island with the Bramble ahead. We passed at a distance Adele Island (so named after Coutance's ship) low and woody, situated at the eastern extreme of the barrier reef surrounding Rossel Island, at a variable distance from the land. The southern ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... and dramatic in the passage from Europe to Asia. One steams slowly through a desert that comes up close to the ship; the sand stretches away, hillock and mound beyond hillock and mound; one sees camels in the offing stringing out to some ancient destination; one is manifestly passing across a barrier,—the canal has changed nothing of that. Suez is a first dab of tumultuous Orientalism, noisy and vivid. And then, after that gleam of turmoil, one opens ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... became necessary to engage a steamer to go around them to break them loose. At last, cargo loaded and ice smashed, they sailed away from Ostend and pointed their bow towards the great fleets, not again to see land for two full months, save Heligoland and Terschelling in the far distant offing. ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... breastworks, and the streets leading up from the water-side were barricaded. There was a great scarceness of lead for bullets; and to supply that need the leaden sashes, in which window-panes were at that time set, were melted down. When the fleet of the enemy appeared in the offing, Charleston was quite ready to give ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... season on the Fraser and in the north the Japs abandoned trolling for the gill net. The white trollers returned to their first love because he courted them assiduously. There was always a MacRae carrier in the offing. It cost MacRae his sleep and rest, but he drove himself tirelessly. He could leave Squitty at dusk, unload his salmon at Crow Harbor, and be back at sunrise. He did it many a time, after tallying fish all day. Three hours' sleep was like a gift from the gods. But he kept it up. ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... about a mile away in the offing, and on the shore stood about half a dozen sailors, taking charge of the boats in which the armed force ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... between two large islands on account of possible shoals. The islands were round in form, like those we had seen farther back, but were of a good height. Now we held east again, with four biggish islands and two islets in the offing. On our other side we presently had a line of flat islands with steep shores. The channel was far from safe here. In the evening we suddenly noticed large stones standing up above the water among some ice-floes close ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... Marquis De La Fayette and Baron De Kalb arrived in the United States in the same small vessel, which made the land at North inlet, near Georgetown, about the middle of June, in the year 1777. They lay in the offing, and seeing a canoe, with two negroes in it, come out of the inlet a fishing, they sent off a boat, which intercepted them. Fortunately they belonged to Capt. Benjamin Huger, who had just arrived at North Island with his family, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... when the lookout forward gave the news that there was a ship in the offing. Immediately the Vaterland altered her course slightly and headed for the newcomer, which it ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... and a lieutenant, diminutive but highly effective in appearance, led six men toward the Karluk. He wore a sword and revolver; the men carried carbines. Their disciplined rank and smartness, the waiting launch, the gunboat in the offing, were ominous with the suggestion of power, the will to administer it. The officer in command carried his chin at an arrogant tilt. Lund had rigged a gangway and stood at the head of it, saluting the lieutenant as the latter ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... water's edge. The bombardment continued, with little intermission, till nearly eleven: the Algerines fighting all the time with the utmost fury and desperation. About ten it was deemed advisable to take a large offing during the night. It was extremely dark: but the darkness was illuminated by a violent storm of lightning accompanied with thunder, and by the incessant fire of the batteries. The firing ceased about half-past eleven, and Lord Exmouth ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... assailed that the English knew nothing of their danger, till in the morning, a reconnoitring canoe discovered the invaders. Two armed vessels soon came to cannonade them; but their light guns were no match for the heavy artillery of the French, and they were forced to keep the offing. ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... that men could not have borne to live so, in such deadly insecurity. But probably they troubled their heads little about the pirates, kept the women and children at home, and set a retainer on the cliff in open weather, to scan the offing for the light-rigged barques, while poorer folk took their chance. We live among a different set of risks now, and think little of them, as ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a wrecker's machine. It was a cylinder with some holes at the side, made for the thrusting in of some long poles with strong leverage; and when there is a vessel in trouble or going to pieces out in the offing, the wreckers shoot a rope out to the suffering men. They grasp it, and the wreckers turn the cylinder, and the rope winds around the cylinder, and those who are shipwrecked are saved. So at your feet to-day there is an influence with a tremendous leverage. The rope attached to it swings ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... affluent and technologically powerful economy- the fifth largest national economy in the world - has become one of the slowest growing economies in the entire euro zone, and a quick turnaround is not in the offing in the foreseeable future. Growth in 2001-03 fell short of 1%. The modernization and integration of the eastern German economy continues to be a costly long-term process, with annual transfers from west to east amounting to roughly ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... comes on to blow at Vera Cruz, all the vessels remaining near the city let go an extra anchor and batten down the hatches; or, wiser still, they let go their ground tackle and hasten to make an offing. The natives promptly haul their light boats well on shore; the citizens securely close their doors and windows; while the sky becomes darkened by clouds of sand driven by fierce gusts of wind. It is a fact that passengers have ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... called the supports, which are to be the fourth part of the fleet, and the lightest and best sailers; but they must not move in rear of the fleet, because they would not see well what is passing so as to give timely succour, and therefore they ought always to keep an offing on that side or flank of the fleet where the flagship is, or on both sides if they are many; and if they are in one body they should work to station themselves to ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... Ship Island, nearly all came in together. Thus, when the North Star, bearing the flag of the commanding general and sailing from New York on the 4th of December, arrived in the early morning of the 13th at Ship Island, nearly the whole fleet lay at anchor or in the offing; and as soon as a hasty inspection could be completed and fresh orders given, the expedition got under way for New Orleans. The larger vessels, however, like the Atlantic, Baltic, and Ericsson being unable to cross the bar, lay at anchor at Ship Island ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... from the Masons of England, to the Masons of Virginia. The bowl was very graceful, and contained on one side a lovely representation of the landing at Jamestown, with the tranquil, smiling river, the vessel in the offing, and the group of friendly red men on the shore; on the other was, of course, depicted the rescue of Captain John Smith by the Indian girl. The bowl was finished at top and bottom with wreaths of Virginia creepers, forest ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... he was called by all, pacing up and down the poop-deck hastily, and scanning the offing with a spy-glass, as if in search of approaching vessels or of clouds that promised wind, but neither came, dark night fell once more, and Mr Brymer ordered the oars out and we were rowed round to the other side of the ship, from which position we could see a light faintly shining ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... hastily lighted a bundle of more fir, that threw up its red, sputtering blaze half-way to the roof, and, dropping the covering, continued to wave it opposite the window. Guns were still heard at measured intervals, but apparently from a safer offing; and the last, as it sounded faintly against the wind, came evidently from the interior of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... the arms and ammunition at sea. He brought them in here, hiding them, with the intention of putting out some dark night, making several short trips, and transferring all the rifles and cartridges—eight thousand rifles and three million cartridges, to a small steamer that would be waiting in the offing. The steam vessel would then carry the cargo to Cuba, landing the goods at some secret, appointed place. Captain Billy, as our government learned, was to receive one thousand dollars for his share ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... beach for the teethers to dig in, and there was an effect of superior fashion in the gossipers on the piazza, one to every three of the three hundred feet of the piazza, rocking and talking, and guessing at the yachts in the offing, and then bathing and coming out to lie on the sand and ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... other side of the island was the large and populous bay of Hannamanoo, where the men sought might yet be found. But as the sun was setting by the time the boat came alongside, we got our offshore tacks aboard and stood away for an offing. About daybreak we wore, and ran in, and by the time the sun was well up, entered the long, narrow channel dividing the islands of La ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... somewhat neglected in the morning. From time to time I went down to the edge of the wood; but there was no change in the pavilion, and not a human creature was seen all day upon the links. The schooner in the offing was the one touch of life within my range of vision. She, apparently with no set object, stood off and on or lay to, hour after hour; but as the evening deepened, she drew steadily nearer. I became more convinced that ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless, Thy port assured in a happier land than mine. But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine, As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding, From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line In the offing scatterest foam, thy ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... them, and here and there was a little tillage: the land was little better than level, only it swelled a little this way and that. It was a bright sunny day and the air very clear, and as they rode Ralph said: "Quite clear is the sky, and yet one cloud there is in the offing; but this is strange about it, though I have been watching it this half hour, and looking to see the rack come up from that quarter, yet it changes not at all. I never saw the like ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... steamer is expected I rarely fail to visit the boat-slip, as the men usually collect when she is in the offing, and lie arguing among their curaghs till she has made her visit to the south island, and ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... or malice have we here?" cries Herve Riel: "Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues? Talk to me of rocks and shoals?—me, who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell 'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river disembogues? Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for? Morn and eve, night and day, Have I piloted your bay, Enter'd free and anchor'd fast at the foot of Solidor. Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... to pass on its way to Quebec. Some of Durell's ships destroyed the French 'long-shore batteries near this Traverse, at the lower end of the island of Orleans, while the rest kept ceaseless watch to seaward, anxiously scanning the offing, day after day, to make out the colours of the first fleet up. No one knew what the French West India fleet would do; and there was a very disconcerting chance that it might run north and slip into the St Lawrence, ahead of Saunders, ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... such of his men as had not yet got under cover, and was slowly creeping down the coast to the place from whence he came, when, on the 8th June, Sir James Yeo, who by this time had become master of his own movements, and had got out of Kingston, appeared in the offing; intelligence from the shore had apprised him of the state of things, and of the position of the enemy; and Richardson (the late James Richardson, D.D.) dwells with sailorly impatience on the perversity of a calm.... A breeze sprung up and ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... water; and leaving my friendly negroes, I made forward for about eleven days more, without offering to go near the shore, till I saw the land run out a great length into the sea, at about the distance of four or five leagues before me; and the sea being very calm, I kept a large offing to make this point. At length, doubling the point, at about two leagues from the land, I saw plainly land on the other side, to seaward; then I concluded, as it was most certain indeed, that this was the Cape de Verde, and those the islands called, from thence, ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... the Cento Camerelle, a big lazzarone, became inordinately abusive. My impression is that he had received about fifteen times his due; but, seeing our yacht in the offing, he conceived the idea that we were princes in our own country, and ought to be robbed in his proportionally. Guy's eyes began to gleam at last, and he made a step toward the offender. I thought he was going to be heavily visited; but Livingstone only lifted him by the ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... before the watchful eye of Captain Scraggs observed Mr. Gibney and McGuffey in the offing, a block away. When they came aboard they found Captain Scraggs on top of the house, seated on an upturned fire bucket, smoking pensively and gazing across the bay with an assumption of lamblike ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... summer my roving propensities began to assert themselves, and I longed to go farther afield over the sea. I bethought me how I might contrive myself a boat in which to venture into the offing with, as my canoe was too frail ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... a bit late—Natica and I. It must have been a quarter past the hour when we drove up to Cherry's. I felt reasonably certain that if Jack Drayton were guarding a champagne bucket by the corner table that night, he was located then. In the offing, miserably self-conscious, a crush hat on the back of his really fine head, and two or three small locomotive headlights glinting from his broad expanse of evening shirt, was "Boiler-plate" Hartopp. The flunkeys were regarding him curiously, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... nearest village, the "Adams" continued her course, intending to put into the Penobscot River. While making for this point, a sail was sighted, which proved to be the British brig-sloop "Rifleman." The corvette gave chase, but the Englishman kept well in the offing; and, as the condition of the American crew was such that to lead them into action would have been imprudent, Morris abandoned the pursuit, and, putting into the Penobscot, dropped anchor off Hampden. Here, for the present, we will ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... cried the impatient mariner, "if so be as how you'll bear a hand and rig yourself, and take a short trip with me into the offing, we'll overhaul this here affair in ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... much increased in magnitude, and the comb of the sea was far more menacing to the boat. This would not have been the case had the rocks formed a lee; but they did not, running too near the direction of the trades to prevent the billows that got up a mile or so in the offing, from sending their swell quite home to the reef. It was this swell, indeed, which caused the line of white water along the northern margin of the coral, washing on the rocks by a sort of lateral effort, and breaking, as a matter of course. In many places, no boat ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... army that he had left on the Italian shore. The messages of encouragement and of urgency which he sent across to them did not bring them over, and at length, one dark and stormy night, when he thought that the inclemency of the skies and the heavy surging of the swell in the offing would drive his vigilant enemies into places of shelter, and put them off their guard, he determined to cross the sea himself and bring his hesitating army over. He ordered a galley to be prepared, and went on ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... before the mast were thorough seamen, the task was speedily accomplished. There were no "green hands" to be favored, for every one was competent to hand, reef, and steer. By the time the squadron was well in the offing, the ship's company was in condition to make sail. About ten miles outside of the ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... sculled it on shore, while Mr Seagrave and William brought up the goats and sheep ready for the next trip. Ready soon returned. "Now this will be our last trip for to-day, and, if I am any judge of the weather, our last trip for some days; it is banking up very thick in the offing. This trip we'll be able to put into the boat a bag of corn for the creatures, in case we require it, and then we may say good-bye to the ship for a day or ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... English war-ship on their coast was a foe more to be dreaded than a pirate, and the wealth it had taken at Valparaiso was amply worth recapture. With all haste the governor got together a force of two thousand men, horse and foot, and at their head hurried to the port. There in the offing was the dangerous rover, lying motionless in a calm, and offering a promising chance ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... in the offing, With her topsails shot with fire, And my heart has gone aboard her For the ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... luggage, without any companionship, and without a plan of campaign, she found herself in a strange foreign port—a port of evil repute, possessing some of the worst-managed hotels in Europe. She strolled on the quay for a few minutes, and then she saw the smoke of another steamer in the offing. She inquired from an official what that steamer might be, and was told that it was the eight o'clock from Dover, which had broken down, put into Calais for some slight necessary repairs, and was arriving ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... that it was a French boat, though something in the rig made him not quite positive. It cruised about in a queer manner, 'just as if she was on the watch for something,' as the man said. However, towards mid-day she drew out into the offing, and they saw her sails slowly disappearing ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... were oddly jumbled upon the list of emigrants with jewellers, perfumers, and gold refiners, and "gentlemen" held prominence in numbers and influence. The officers outnumbered the privates. The little fleet was hardly out of the offing when the struggle for power began. The voyage was not half accomplished when John Smith was charged with complicity in a discovered mutiny. He had intended, it was alleged, to murder his superiors, seize the fleet, and make himself king of Virginia. The "General History ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... was Aileen talking bravely at the time she invaded Mrs. Lillian Cowperwood's domain of the necessity of "her Frank" finding a woman suitable to his needs, tastes, abilities, but now that the possibility of another woman equally or possibly better suited to him was looming in the offing—although she had no idea who it might be—she could not reason in the same way. Her ox, God wot, was the one that was being gored. What if he should find some one whom he could want more than he did her? Dear heaven, how terrible that would be! What ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the cosmic process working through and by human energy and intelligence; and, as is the case with every other artificial thing set up in the state of nature, the influences of the latter, are constantly tending to break it down and destroy it. No doubt, the Forth bridge and an ironclad in the offing, are, in ultimate resort, products of the cosmic process; as much so as the river which flows under the one, or the seawater on which the other floats. Nevertheless, every breeze strains the bridge a little, every tide does something to weaken its foundations; every change of temperature ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... rushing to the telegraph. But no! A freshet on the Chowan River, or a raid by Foster, or something, or nothing, had smashed the telegraph wire for that night. And before that despatch ever reached Wilmington the navy agent was in the offing in the ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... all Sam had to say about it! but what he had to say about it did not comfort him. He rather savagely "shook" Miss Hastings at his first opportunity, and Vivian's dearest friend, who had been hovering in the offing, saw him do it, which was a great satisfaction to her. Later she seized upon him, although he had savagely sworn to stick to the men, and by some incomprehensible process Sam found himself once more tete-a-tete with Miss Westlake, just over at the edge of the ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... chemise into a pair of breeches, cut her hair close, and, in short, completely disguised herself as a sailor. She then made her way to the coast, where by chance she encountered a Catalan gentleman, by name Segner Encararch, who had landed from one of his ships, which lay in the offing, to recreate himself at Alba, where there was a fountain. So she made overture to him of her services, was engaged and taken aboard the ship, assuming the name Sicurano da Finale. The gentleman put her in better trim as to clothes, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the room, causing it to be whirled into the air. As Wang Tun was watching the career of the chalice, Hsue disappeared and escaped. When he reached Lu-chiang K'ou, in Anhui, he boarded a boat, which two dragons towed into the offing and then raised into the air. In an instant they had borne it to the Lue Shan Mountains, to the south of Kiukiang, in Kiangsi. The perplexed boatman opened the window of his boat and took a furtive look out. Thereupon ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... arrived at their port, they perceived some ships in the offing that seemed to be pursuing them. They endeavored to escape, but their pursuers gained rapidly upon them, and at length fired a gun as a signal for the queen's vessel to stop. The ball came bounding over the ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... to England the next minute after it was over, on some convenient fairy carpet such as I used to read of in Eastern tales when I was a boy. For us, we had to make our way in haste back to the ship, which lay in the offing, and could not come near on account of the reef barrier. We got on board safely, passing the reefs where once an American ship was wrecked and her crew killed and eaten by the people ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... From the offing the open estuary promises every possible fruition to adventurous hopes. That road open to enterprise and courage invites the explorer of coasts to new efforts towards the fulfilment of great expectations. The commander of the first Roman galley must have looked with an intense absorption ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and from this to the Jacobin Club, or to the Commune, which held its meetings in the evening.... They scarcely took time for their natural requirements; they were often seen dining and supping at their posts when some action or an important murder was in the offing. Henriot, the commander-in-chief of both hordes, was at one time a swindler, then a police-informer, then imprisoned at Bicetre for robbery, and then one of the September murderers. His military bearing and popularity are due to parading the streets in the uniform of a general, and appearing in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... monitor Miantonomoh. The remainder of the day passed without any other unusual or noteworthy incident, but sometime in the night the fleet of Admiral Sampson joined the Flying Squadron in the offing, and Thursday morning the people of Key West saw, in their harbor and at sea off Fort Taylor, the largest and most powerful fleet of war-vessels that had ever assembled, perhaps, under ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... value.—N. B. He is a cousin to a family of Petersons, which was the name of the husband of my sister-in-law; so there is room to hope it may be worth more than be reports.—10th November, 10 A.M. May God pardon all our sins! An English frigate, bearing the Parliament flag, has appeared in the offing, and gives chase.—11 A. M. She nears us every moment, and the captain of our vessel prepares to clear for action. May God again ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... different parts of the coast, being directly opposite to the remarks of Captain Cook, it may be proper to state them. That great and able seaman says, in his notice of the current on this coast, that 'It always ran with more force in shore than in the offing.' Now, in going to the northward the sloop was kept as near in shore as circumstances would permit; but the whole sum of southing produced in eight entire days, from latitude 33 degrees 45 minutes to 24 degrees 22 minutes south, was sixty-five ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... his henchmen were returning to the tavern one night, after a visit to a rakish-looking vessel in the offing, when a squall broke in such force as to give their skiff a leeway to the place of executions. As they rounded that lonely reef a creaking noise overhead caused Vanderscamp to look up, and he could not ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... morning of the 5th, assumed a very different aspect from that which we had experienced for the last two days; the wind gradually subsided, and with it the sea, and a favorable breeze now springing up, we were enabled to make a good offing. Fortunately no accident of consequence occurred, although several of our people were severely bruised by falls. Poor fellows! they certainly suffered enough; not a dry stitch, not a dry hammock have they had since we sailed. Happily, however, their misfortunes ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... their right, stretched the blue line of the Bay, where a single ship-of-war tacked lazily and kept a two-miles' offing. The smoke of the guns, drifting down on the land-breeze from the summit of Mount Olia, now hid her white sails, now lifted and revealed them in the late afternoon sunshine. But although blue held the upper heavens—cloudless blue of July—the ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... brigs were bound to the Baltic, and the first day out a heavy press of canvas was carried in order to get a good offing, lest the wind and sea should make and catch them tight on a lee shore. After they had been out twenty-four hours they both tacked off Flamborough Head, bearing west twenty miles, and stood to the N.E. The Silverspray ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... sort only a consummate actor can seem to be busy. Well, I got to the barrow just in time. There were two; a Grenadier Guardsman got the other, and amid envious looks we wheeled them off towards a heap of rubble in the offing, "conveniently low." Then, with a simultaneous sigh of relief, we mechanically produced our pipes and tobacco, found comfortable seats against the pile of rubble, and had a good chat, lazily watching the genesis ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... arms against the Romans; after having placed their children and wives and their rich treasures for security in the mountain-fortresses of the Taurus, they awaited the Roman fleet at the western frontier of Cilicia, in the offing of Coracesium. But here the ships of Pompeius, well manned and well provided with all implements of war, achieved a complete victory. Without farther hindrance he landed and began to storm and break up the mountain-castles of the corsairs, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... against them is impossible. Hence our satisfaction can be imagined as we sped along the Labrador coast that day, the wind becoming a trifle easterly, so as to allow us to "start our sheets" and at the same time steadily increase our offing, getting such a weatherly position for Canso that the moment the expected change of direction began we promptly "tacked ship" and at the worst ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... that closed in the bay on the west, with his hands still clasped over his ears, as if the awful word were following him, he flew rather than fled. It was nearly low water, and the wet sand afforded an easy road to his flying feet. Betwixt sea and shore, a sail in the offing the sole other moving thing in the solitary landscape, like a hunted creature he sped, his footsteps melting and vanishing behind ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Borneo hovered, far and blue, in the offing, when we struck our first, and last, typhoon. The mate avowed it was merely the tail-end of a typhoon; if that was the tail-end, it is good that the body of it did not strike down ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... the spiced and salty zephyr Build them up in frame and mind, Till they feel as fresh and effer- vescent as their hearts are kind, And in triumph close their Indian Tour on far Massilia's quay, Never having known too windy an Offing, too ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... this bluster, Hymen. I've cornered you, and you know it. The flares in the offing yonder came from two preventive boats. Back-door and front I have you, as neat as a rat in a drain; so you may just turn that lantern of yours on the cargo, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the unconquered Half-moon upon one side and the incomplete batteries and platforms of Bucquoy on the other, still defiantly opened its passage to the sea, and the retiring fleets of the garrison were white in the offing. All around was the grey expanse of stormy ocean, without a cape or a headland to break its monotony, as the surges rolled mournfully in upon a desolation more dreary than their own. The atmosphere was murky and surcharged ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... ground for fear. Not only was the bark still in the position which she had previously occupied, but there had been another arrival during the night. A large three-masted steamer, of apparently 2000 tons, was lying in the offing, and three small boats could be seen a few miles distant pulling swiftly toward the mouth of the river. Great was the excitement which this discovery produced. Dodd rushed furiously down the hill to the kazarm, shouting ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... a new satisfaction in walking again the streets of this little sandy, sawdust-paved, shantyfied town, with its yellow hills and its wide blue river and its glimpse of the lake far in the offing. It had never meant anything to him before. Now he enjoyed every brick and board of it; he trod the broken, aromatic shingles of the roadway with pleasure; he tramped up the broad stairs and down the dark hall of the block with anticipation; he breathed the compounded office ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... did considerable damage to the shipping in the Thames. A coal was picked up off Vauxhall, which gave rise to a report that a barge had gone down in the offing. On making inquiries at Lloyd's, we asked what were the advices, when we were advised to mind our own business, an answer we have too frequently received from the underlings of that establishment. The Bachelor has been telegraphed on its way up from Chelsea. It is expected to bring ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various |
