The Open Boat

These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea.

The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks.

The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to even the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down.

The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to even the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down.

A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats.

Viewed from a balcony, the whole thing would doubtlessly have been weirdly picturesque.

In disjointed sentences the cook and the correspondent argued as to the difference between a life-saving station and a house of refuge.

The crest of each of these waves was a hill, from the top of which the men surveyed, for a moment, a broad tumultuous expanse; shining and wind-riven.

The busy oiler nodded his assent.

To express any particular optimism at this time they felt to be childish and stupid, but they all doubtless possessed this sense of the situation in their mind.

On the other hand, the ethics of their condition was decidedly against any open suggestion of hopelessness.

At these times they were uncanny and sinister in their unblinking scrutiny, and the men hooted angrily at them, telling them to be gone.

The captain naturally wished to knock it away with the end of the heavy painter, but he did not dare do it, because anything resembling an emphatic gesture would have capsized this freighted boat, and so with his open hand, the captain gently and carefully waved the gull away.

She seemed just a wee thing wallowing, miraculously, top-up, at the mercy of five oceans.

But the waves continued their old impetuous swooping at the dingey, and the little craft, no longer under way, struggled woundily over them.

Under the influence of this expansion doubt and direful apprehension was leaving the minds of the men.

It is fair to say here that there was not a life-saving station within twenty miles in either direction, but the men did not know this fact and in consequence they made dark and opprobrious remarks concerning the eyesight of the nation's life-savers.

They then briefly exchanged some addresses and admonitions.

It is a limited area, but it can become the theatre of innumerable muscular conflicts, tangles, wrenches, knots, and other comforts.

His head, pillowed on a thwart, was within an inch of the swirl of a wave crest, and sometimes a particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and drenched him once more.

"Holy smoke!" said one, allowing his voice to express his impious mood, "if we keep on monkeying out here!

"PIE," said the oiler and the correspondent, agitatedly.

The cook had tied a life-belt around himself in order to get even the warmth which this clumsy cork contrivance could donate, and he seemed almost stove-like when a rower, whose teeth invariably chattered wildly as soon as he ceased his labor, dropped down to sleep.

There was a long, loud swishing astern of the boat, and a gleaming trail of phosphorescence, like blue flame, was furrowed on the black waters.

The others silently acquiesced in this reasoning.

She did not seem cruel to him, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise.