Sea Stories Books

The Spanish Man-of-war off Shetland—A Calm—The “Saint Cecilia” in Danger—The Pilot—Brassay Sound. “Land! land on the larboard bow!” The cry was uttered in a foreign tongue from the masthead of a corvette of twenty guns, a beautiful long, low, flush-decked craft with dark hull, taunt raking masts, and square yards, which, under all the sails she could carry with a southerly breeze right... more...

Chapter One. The Story of the Buried Treasure. Those of my readers who happen to be well acquainted with Weymouth, will also be assuredly acquainted with a certain lane, known as Buxton’s Lane, branching off to the right from the high-road at Rodwell, and connecting that suburb with the picturesque little village of Wyke. I make this assertion with the most perfect confidence, because Buxton’s Lane... more...

CHAPTER I MR. GILLETT'S CHARGE "By all means, m'deah, let's go down between decks and have a look at them." "Of course, if you wish, Sir Charles, although--Do you think we shall be edified, Mr. Gillett?" "That depends, m'lady,"--and the speaker, a man with official manners and ferret-like eyes, shifted from one foot to another,--"on what degree, or... more...

CHAPTER I.Roll on thou deep and dark blue ocean roll;. . . . . . Upon the watery plain.The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remainA shadow of man's ravage, save his own,When for a moment like a drop of rain,He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. September 27, 1607. Dead bodies everywhere. The ocean, lashed to fury by the gale of... more...

PART I The first man to climb the Almena's side-ladder from the tug was the shipping-master, and after him came the crew he had shipped. They clustered at the rail, looking around and aloft with muttered profane comments, one to the other, while the shipping-master approached a gray-eyed giant who stood with a shorter but broader man at the poop-deck steps. "Mr. Jackson—the mate here, I... more...

Lieutenant Jack Rogers at home—His brother Tom resolves to follow in his wake—His old shipmates discussed—Letter from Terence Adair descriptive of his family—Admiral Triton pleads Tom’s cause—The Admiral’s advice to Tom—Leaving home. “Really, Jack, that uniform is excessively becoming. Do oblige us by standing up as if you were on the quarter-deck of your ship and hailing the... more...

CHAPTER I THE GIRL ON THE "VEILED LADYE" The big coastwise tug Hydrographer slid stern-ward into a slip cluttered with driftwood and bituminous dust, stopping within heaving distance of three coal-laden barges which in their day had reared "royal s'ls" to the wayward winds of the seven seas. Near-by lay Horace Howland's ocean-going steam yacht, Veiled Ladye, which had put into... more...

PREFACE MORE than three years have elapsed since the occurrence of the events recorded in this volume. The interval, with the exception of the last few months, has been chiefly spent by the author tossing about on the wide ocean. Sailors are the only class of men who now-a-days see anything like stirring adventure; and many things which to fire-side people appear strange and romantic, to them seem as... more...

THE NEW VESSEL OF WITHROW’S It was only a few days before this that the new vessel of Mr. Withrow’s, built by him, as everybody supposed, for Maurice Blake, had been towed around from Essex, and I remember how Maurice stood on the dock that afternoon and looked her over. There was not a bolt or a plank or a seam in her whole hull, not a square inch inside or out, that he had not been over half a... more...

THE SEPTEMBER-GALE STORY nce upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way. And because ships had... more...