Use helm in a sentence

Observing that his own sloop, which was still fit for action, drew more water than the pirate's, he ordered all her ballast to be thrown out, and, directing his men to conceal themselves between decks, took the helm in person, and steered directly aboard of his antagonist, who continued inextricably fixed on the shoal.

There were those at first who refused to entrust their lives to such frail hands, and there are still some who look concerned when they see a woman at the lever; but on the whole the elevator "girl" has gained the confidence of her public, and has gained it by skill, not by feminine wiles, for even men won't shoot into space with a woman at the helm whose sole equipment is charm.

Nine days they sailed smoothly, favored by the western wind, and by the tenth they approached so nigh as to discern lights kindled on the shores of their country earth: when by ill fortune, Ulysses, overcome with fatigue of watching the helm, fell asleep.

Everything around me, except in the one direction in which the Earth's disc still obscured the Sun, remained unchanged for hours and days; and the management of my machinery required no more than an occasional observation of my instruments and a change in the position of the helm, which occupied but a few minutes some half-dozen times in the twenty-four hours.

Even my eyes, accustomed to the darkness, and strained to the utmost, could detect scarcely more than the faintest shadow gliding silently by, yet sufficient to recognize the outlines of a small keel boat, propelled by a single lug sail, and even imagined I could discern the stooped figure of a man at the helm.

I intended to do this too; but, riding to the deep part, before I could dismount and seize the helm the ox dashed off with his companions, and his body sank so deep that I failed in my attempt even to catch the blanket belt, and if I pulled the bridle the ox seemed as if he would come backward upon me, so I struck out for the opposite bank alone.

This is much; but it is yet more, when you have fully achieved the superiority which is due to you, and acquired the wealth which is the fitting reward of your sagacity, if you solemnly accept the responsibility of it, as it is the helm and guide of labor far and near.

You see the great steamer crossing the ocean when under full headway, and she can turn how this way and now that, with the least little touch of the rudder, but when she is creeping, creeping through the narrow channel, she must have a strong, sure hand at the helm, and when she is coming up to her wharf, easy, easy, she must swing in a wide circle.

Instead of standing on for another mile and a half along the shoals and then tacking for the anchorage in a proper and seamanlike manner, he spies a gap between two disgusting old jagged reefs, puts the helm down suddenly, and shoots the brig through, with all her sails shaking and rattling, so that we could hear the racket on the verandah.

For certainly, the same responsibility, that ought to remove a minister from the helm, when he is become obnoxious to his countrymen, equally makes it improper, that he should be originally appointed by the fancy or capricious partiality of the sovereign.

This unwonted cry sent a thrill through the heart of everyone, and hurrying on deck we found the vessel hove flat aback, with all her studding sails set; for the boy who was at the helm left it to throw something overboard, and the carpenter, who was an old sailor, knowing that the wind was light, put the helm down and hove her aback.

There was however another way perhaps more sure, at any rate better adapted to the character and nature of these constitutionalists; they might labor to set the two regents at variance and through this variance to attain ultimately to the helm themselves.

The rigid aristocracy which early gained the helm in the several communities, and which found in case of need a sure reserve of support in the federal power, prevented the rise of tyrants; but the danger to be apprehended was that the government of the best might be converted into a government of the few, especially if the privileged families in the different communities should combine to assist each other in carrying out their designs.

And though this is only a surmise, nevertheless, as having some knowledge of brandy and mankind, White-Jacket will venture to state that, had Captain Claret been an out-and-out temperance man, he would never have given that most imprudent order to hard up the helm.

The air of wind freshening, we kept on at a spanking rate for another hour, Groves lying on the deck with his eyes just over the bulwarks and giving orders to Dawson and me, who kept the helm; then the galley, being within a quarter of a mile of us, fired a shot as a signal to us to haul down our sail, and this having no effect, he soon after fires another, which, striking us in the stern, sent great splinters flying up from the bulwarks there.

Antony, now free for a moment from his enchantress's sway, and acting under the impulse of his own indomitable boldness and decision, instead of urging the oarsmen to press forward more rapidly in order to make good their escape, ordered the helm to be put about, and thus, turning the galley around, he faced his pursuers, and drove his ship into the midst of them.

This they effected; and about ten minutes after the firing had ceased, the French ships put their helms up, and went off to the northward, dead before the wind, as if inviting their enemies to come on and fight it out fairly in that manner, if they felt disposed to pursue the affair any farther.

Wilder instinctively caught the helm, as he bent his face in the direction whence the revolting eye of Cassandra had been turned.

At moments, as she mounted on a sea, her bows seemed issuing from the element altogether and high jets of spray were cast into the air, glittering in the sun, as the white particles scattered in the breeze, or fell in gems upon the sails and rigging, "It is now too late, indeed;" murmured our adventurer bearing up the helm of his own little craft, and letting its sheet glide through his hands, until the sail was bagging with the breeze nearly to bursting.

These two youngsters at my request kept her stationary for ten minutes, with a touch of engine and helm now and then, within three feet of a big, ugly mooring buoy over which the water broke, and the spray flew in sheets, and which would have holed her if she had bumped against it.

They supposed that he was going out to the edge of the river, and that then he would turn and come back; but, to their utter amazement, he pushed boldly on directly into the current, and then, putting his helm hard up and calling out to the crew to give way strong, the boat swept round into the very center of the stream and shot down the river over the rips like an arrow.

The instrument would be controlled by the rudder, and the commanding officer of the vessel would be able so to turn it when the helm was put up or down that the light would flash at some distance in front of either bow of the vessel, and thus be a signal to a vessel coming in an opposite direction.

A single glance upon Lysistrata, and the Female Orators, must raise astonishment, when the Athenian policy is set below the schemes of women, whom the author makes ridiculous, for no other reason than, to bring contempt upon their husbands, who held the helm of government.

She fainted, and though he and his friends employed all the means in their power for her recovery, they were unable to produce any symptom of returning animation, a general exclamation of grief pronounced her dead; when the knight, starting from the body, seized an oar, felled at one blow the presumptuous seaman, threw him by the foot into the sea, took possession of the helm, and directed it so skillfully that the vessel reached the harbor in safety.

Before the echoes had died away, before the great ship could even answer to her helm, there was a crash, such as Augusta had never heard, and a sickening shock, that threw her on her hands and knees on the deck, shaking the iron masts till they trembled as though they were willow wands, and making the huge sails flap and for an instant fly aback.

Of all political snares the democratic is the most tempting, but it is also the most demoralizing and the most deceptive when, instead of consulting the interests of the democracy by securing public liberties, a man aspires to put it in direct possession of the supreme power, and with its sole support to take upon himself the direction of the helm.

The want of government and political administration in general is felt; this necessitates the selection and separation from the rest of those who have to take the helm in political affairs, to decide concerning them, and to give orders to other citizens, with a view to the execution of their plans.

The smugglers now continued on their way, and a few strong pulls brought them within a short distance of the mouth of Ducks' Creek; and Frank, who was at the helm, turned the boat's head toward the shore, and, as soon as her keel touched the bottom, he and Ben sprang out, leaving Harry to watch the prisoner.

A large basket, filled with refreshments, was carefully stowed away in one of the lockers of the Speedwell, the sails were hoisted, the painter was cast off, and Frank took his seat at the helm, and the boat moved from the shore "like a thing of life."

Her helm was shifted; and, as if conscious herself of the danger that threatened her liberty, the beautiful fabric came sweeping up to her course, and, inclining to the breeze, with one heavy flap of the canvas, she glided ahead with all her wonted ease.

He steered carefully but resolutely, luffed her up, watched her coming to, prevented her from yawing, and from running into the wind's eye: noted the leeway, the little jerks of the helm: was observant of every roll and pitch of the vessel, of the difference in her speed, and of the variable gusts of wind.

"Our helm is given up to a better guidance than our own; the course of events is quite too strong for any helmsman, and our little wherry is taken in tow by the ship of the great Admiral which knows the way, and has the force to draw men and states and planets to their good."

Boone, from the principle which places the best pilot at the helm in a storm, was not slow to learn from innumerable circumstances which would have passed unnoticed by a less sagacious woodsman, that, although the country was not actually inhabited by Indians, it was not the less a scene of strife and combat for the possession of such rich hunting grounds by a great number of tribes.

In the meantime the fire began to blaze up in a very alarming manner under the mizzen chains, where, by the attraction of the two floating bodies, she seemed resolved to continue; but on our putting the helm up, and giving the vessel a sheer the contrary way, as soon as we were before the wind, she parted from us, to our great joy, and was soon in a volume of flame.

Then took they off their helms and shouted thrice; and then fled rapidly, for the gates opened behind me, and there was the abbess herself, with her cheeks red, and her eyes burning bright in anger, as I thought, while behind her peeped all her nuns at the crowded street, and at myself standing shamefaced on the steps, doffing my helm as I saw her.

When past the cape, we took in all our sails, and, being between the high lands, the wind blowing trade, or steadily in the direction of the straits, we spooned before the sea under bare poles, three men being unable to manage the helm, and in six hours we were driven twenty-five leagues within the straits.

And I think I may add, without suspicion of flattery, that never any prince had a ministry with a better judgment to distinguish between false and real merit, than that which is now at the helm; or whose inclination as well as interest it is to encourage the latter.

As the leading guards passed us they saluted in all due form; and then one of the ladies knew who was here, and bent to the litter, and so turned and spoke to the captain, who straightway called a halt, and came, helm in hand, to the archbishop, praying him to speak with the lady who was in his charge.

The ship, at the helm of which is a steersman who has either a feeble hand or does not understand his business, and which therefore keeps yawing from side to side, with the bows pointing now this way and now that, is not holding a course that will make the harbor first in the race.

Our latitude was three degrees south, and we only proceeded by occasional tornadoes, the intervals of which were filled up by dead calms and bright weather; when these occurred during the day, the helm was frequently lashed, and all the watch went below.

He was driven from his post with ignominy; and I well remembered seeing a very successful cartoon in "Punch" at that period, representing him, wearing coronet and mantle and fast asleep, at the helm of the ship of state, which was rolling in the trough of the sea and apparently about to founder.

Now through the fog, dark against the flickering glow of the fire, and only seen against it, came creeping figures; and I suppose that some dull glitter of steel from helms or sword hilts betrayed us to them, for word was muttered among them, and the rattle of stones shifted by bare feet seemed to be all round us.

Marx assumed that when the time has arrived for a given economic class to take the helm, that class will be found in full possession of all the psychological attributes of a ruling class, namely, an indomitable will to power, no less than the more vulgar desire for the emoluments that come with power.

As, further, a regular formation in two parties cannot be kept up, a splitting up into fractions, as in the parliaments of the Continent, will ensue, and the changing of the ministry will modify itself accordingly, so that the Crown will no longer be able to commit the helm of the state in simple alternation to the leader of the one or the other majority.

The helm was put round as quickly as possible, but the most anxious spying could not discover any trace of poor piggy's whereabouts; so we proceeded on our original course for a few minutes, when suddenly, to our great astonishment, we saw him alongside, having been nearly run down, but still gallantly swimming along.

We had only two launches and a gig, into which I entered to direct the operation, Major Miller, with forty-four marines, pushing off in the first launch, under the fire of the party at the landing place, by which the coxswain being wounded, the Major had to take the helm, and whilst doing this, received a ball through his hat, grazing the crown of his head.

And what most surprises me in the discourses of learned men, is to hear those persons who confess themselves incapable of steering the vessel of the State in smooth seas (which, indeed, they never learned, and never cared to know) profess themselves ready to assume the helm amidst the fiercest tempests.

Heedless of a warning cry from Ned O'Connor, whose anxiety began to make him very uneasy, the amateur sailors strained every nerve to pull through, while their companion who sat at the helm in the stern of the boat seemed to urge them on to redoubled exertions.

Does it show us that emancipation is more likely to follow from the success of the Southern society which assumes to be at the helm of all schemes of religion and philanthropy, not only has no desire to put an end to slavery, but regards it in such a light that it will be its duty to extend it as much as possible.

In entering on the untried scenes, early disappointment and the premature extinction of all hope of success would have been certain, had it not been that there did exist throughout the country, in a most extraordinary degree, an unwavering trust in him who stood at the helm.

I did not know that the old house, even then, quiet and still as it seemed, was actually rocking on the flood of mutable affairs; that its navigator, sick with anxiety and bewilderment in guiding his home in the years he did not understand, which his experience had never charted, was sinking nerveless at his helm.

She was full of men, who rested on their oars for a few minutes, as if to examine the persons whom they were approaching: the man at the helm waved his hat, and then the boat's head was put round, and they pulled back again to the ship, and left the crew of the Nautilus to their fate.

The man at the helm had been killed at his post, and the wheel itself was shivered to atoms; whilst the darkness of the night, and the roar of the breakers against the cliff, added to the horrors of a catastrophe of which the suddenness alone was sufficient to paralyze the energies of the men.

The helm was put down, under the hopes of staying the vessel, but as the wind was light, and a heavy swell setting in at the time, she did not come round, but getting stern-way, struck with a shock which made every timber vibrate, and appeared to threaten instant destruction to the vessel.

To the right, at the extreme inner corner of the mole, I espied half a dozen boats, not unlike our own, huddled close under a stone stairway; and I had no sooner thrust down the helm than a man, catching sight of us, came running along the mole to barter.

As he checked the onward rush of his horse at the far end of the course, he heard faintly in the dim hollow recess of the helm the loud shout and the clapping of hands of those who looked on, and found himself gripping with nervous intensity the butt of a broken spear, his mouth clammy with excitement, and his heart thumping in his throat.

Indeed, there are seasons when currents quite unaccountable prevail for a great distance round about the total group, and are so strong and irregular as to change a vessel's course against the helm, though sailing at the rate of four or five miles the hour.

After all these repetitions it was not likely that any mistake would occur; and the discipline of the ship required every officer and seaman who received a material order, especially in regard to the helm or the course, to repeat it, and thus make sure that it was not misunderstood.

They had set him on just such a low, carved bedstead as that which we had found outside the house, dressed in his full mail, and helmed, and with his sword at his side, such a priceless weapon, with gold-mounted scabbard and jewelled hilt, as men have risked the terrors of grave mounds to win.

The wind continued to blow in irregular gusts, but always in the same direction, and the helm, or rather the paddle at the back of the raft has never once required shifting; and the watch, who are posted on the fore, under orders to examine the sea with the most scrupulous attention, have had no change of any kind to report.

Ursula dismissed all the seamen, and standing on the deck of the principal vessel, she gave orders to her eleven thousand maiden followers, who, under the influence of inspiration, flitted over the ships dressed in virgin white, now tending the sails, now fixing the ropes, now guiding the helm, until they reached the mouth of the Rhine, up which they sailed in saintly procession to Cologne.

In mine, to which yours of March the 23rd was an answer, I expressed my hope of the only change of position I ever wished to see you make, and I expressed it with entire sincerity, because there is not another person in the United States, who being placed at the helm of our affairs, my mind would be so completely at rest for the fortune of our political bark.

Oswald, supporting himself on the helm, his eyes fixed on the waves, was apparently calm, for his pride, united to his timidity, would scarcely ever permit him to discover, even to his friends, what he felt; but he was internally racked with the most painful emotions.

As he spoke the knight, who had come nearly noiselessly over the grass, stood by them, holding his helm full of water, and looking grimly upon them; but the Lady looked up at him with wide eyes wonderingly, and Ralph, beholding her, deemed that all he had heard of her goodness was but the very sooth.

Sometimes we set our sails to woo that ever-clearing breeze of Shakespeare, only to be forced out of our course by a sputter of rain, an Irish mist, and half a squall from George Bernard Shaw; but the greater part of the time the ship of the stage is careering wildly under bare poles, with a man lashed to the helm (and let us hope that, like Ulysses, he has cotton wool in his ears), before a hurricane of comic opera.

Calmly taking the helm, Putnam steered the boat through the roaring rapids, avoiding the half-hidden rocks and protruding ledges, and, while the Indians looked on in amazement, in a few seconds brought his charge into smooth water at the foot of the falls.

And, the story goes, he rowed out to the vessels, in the dead of night, drove wooden wedges in behind their rudders, and left them helpless, for when the wind came up they would not answer the helm and were driven ashore, where their crews were easily taken by the English.

The boatmen exposed the bronzed and knotted flesh of their biceps to the heat of the day; and similar to strange flowers, which floated, the silk parasols, red, green, blue, or yellow, of the ladies seated near the helm, bloomed in the sterns of the boats.

Two hours at a stretch is all very well, but it is not comfortable to be awakened out of a sound sleep in a warm, snug cabin, to take one's turn at the helm; and I soon discovered that three turns of two hours each is not nearly equivalent to a straightaway snooze of six hours, by any means.

Guizot, whose works are generally known and admired, particularly his Commentaries on the English Revolution; partly a continuation of the same subject, it is stated he has now in preparation, but placed at the helm of the nation, as he now is, his time is too much occupied to be devoted to any other object than affairs of state, and his position is such as requires the exertion of every power of thought and mind to sustain, against its numerous and indefatigable assailants.

Indeed, the surgeon had a stormy look forward, and the navigation of October was so threatening, awful, and almost desperate, as he stood alone through the dreadful watches at the helm, with hot cheek and unsteady hand, trusting stoically to luck and hoping against hope, that rocks would melt, and the sea cease from drowning, that it was almost a wonder he did not leap overboard, only for the certainty of a cold head and a quiet heart, and one deep sleep.

At night, in the moonlight, when all were asleep, except the steersman who stood at the helm, she sat at the side of the ship trying to pierce the clear water with her eyes, and fancied she saw her father's palace, and above it her old grandmother with her silver crown on her head, looking up through the cross currents towards the keel of the ship.

Here there was nothing but the Dunes, wide, curving land, that stretched away and away, a tableland of little hollows and hills, like some sea whose waves have been consolidated; near at hand its colors were warm, if not vivid, but in the far distance it grew paler as the vegetation became less and less, till, far away, almost beyond sight, it failed to gray helm grass, and then altogether ceased, leaving the sand bare.

A nation is quickly sensible of the miseries it feels, and little comforted by knowing what account it turns to by the wealth, the power, the honors conferred on those who sit at the helm, or the salaries paid to their penmen; while the body of the people is sunk into poverty and despair.

The first necessary business of the President-elect, while he watched the gathering of what Emerson named "the hurricane in which he was called to the helm," was to construct a strong Cabinet, to which may be added the seemingly unnecessary business forced upon him of dealing with a horde of pilgrims who at once began visiting him to solicit some office or, in rarer cases, to press their disinterested opinions.

"Yes, the vessel is snug enough now," he said, "though eyesight has shown us it is no easy matter to drive a freighted ship through the water as fast as one of those flying craft aboard which no man can say who stands at the helm, by what compass she steers, or what is her draft!"

John Smith was a godsend to the American settlers, because he was a plain man in a company of titled nonentities, and after they had tried and failed in every effort to make or perpetuate an American colony, plain John Smith, a democrat, without a title, took the helm and made it a success.

At length the dawn came, and the light fell dimly down the depths of the vast gulf, revealing the long ranks of the Spaniards clad in their bright armor, and the yet more brilliant thousands of their native allies, gorgeous in their painted helms and their glittering coats of feathers.

The man at the helm obeyed, and the next send of the sea drove the Scud down upon the quarter of the ship, so near her that the old mariner himself recoiled a step, in a vague expectation that, at the next surge ahead, she would drive bows foremost directly into the planks of the other vessel.

Those at the helm were clever demagogues who were prepared to humor the people, provided they had the control of the public funds wherewith to indulge their licentious tastes.

Half an hour later three bright red reflections, looking like transparent floating balls of light filled with ruby-red, bubbling billows, marked a spot where the helm had to be turned to port in order to bring the ship through a gap in the line of mines.

We came at the dons again as we had done before, only closer than ever; and just as the captain gave the word to put her about, a ball from one of their guns which they had trained down on us, cut old Dick Kemp in half at the helm, and broke the tiller to splinters.

The Tom Bowling was thrown into the wind and brought to a stand abreast of Labor's Retreat; Plum took a turn with the helm and went to help at the guns, and in a few minutes the three of a crew, with Westlake continuously bawling out orders to bear a hand and load again, were actively engaged in firing blank at the enemy on the lawn.

This truth we see exemplified in the formative period of Amerigo Vespucci's life, for, in order to become qualified to adorn the high position of a prince of commerce, he was as carefully trained as if to fill a prelate's chair or grasp the helm of state.

If the health of the father failed or the war had left him crippled, there was nothing for it but for the mother to take the helm; and many a Canadian can trace lineage back to a United Empire Loyalist woman who planted the first crop by hand with a hoe and reaped the first crop by hand with a sickle.

Having plunged to a certain depth he placed two men at the engine which was intended to give her progressive motion, and one at the helm, while he, with a barometer before him, governed the machine which kept her balanced between the upper and lower waters.

This simple evolution, as she righted her helm, brought her about fifty yards to windward of the Plantagenet, past which ship she surged slowly but steadily, the weather now permitting a conversation to be held at that distance, and by means of trumpets, with little or no effort of the voice.

It was very pleasant, when I stayed late in town, to launch myself into the night, especially if it was dark and tempestuous, and set sail from some bright village parlor or lecture room, with a bag of rye or Indian meal upon my shoulder, for my snug harbor in the woods, having made all tight without and withdrawn under hatches with a merry crew of thoughts, leaving only my outer man at the helm, or even tying up the helm when it was plain sailing.

This unwonted cry sent a thrill through the heart of every one, and hurrying on deck we found the vessel hove flat aback, with all her studding-sails set; for the boy who was at the helm left it to throw something overboard, and the carpenter, who was an old sailor, knowing that the wind was light, put the helm down and hove her aback.

"Johnson," said Jones, to the young midshipman by his side, "run forward and have the main-yard hauled; give her a good full, quartermaster," he said to the veteran seaman at the helm, and then watched the water over the side to see when she gathered headway through it.

They had gained a small but precious advantage, however, as the frigate, apparently as much surprised by the unexpected maneuver as their own men, had allowed some moments to elapse before her helm was shifted, and the wind brought on the other quarter; the courses of the two ships now intersected at an angle of perhaps seventy degrees, which would bring them together in a short time.

A judicious manipulation of the helm kept the Flying Fish this time on the surface for perhaps a quarter of a minute, just long enough, in fact, to satisfy the wondering beholders that their eyes had not deceived them, when she once more disappeared, this time finally, from the view of the fleet.

The professor, who was not absolutely ignorant of nautical phraseology, promptly ported his helm and at the same moment stopped the engines, by which maneuver the Flying Fish glided close past the object so slowly that it was easily distinguishable as a huge pinnacle of rock.

We were skimming briskly along before the pleasant easterly breeze, Billy being at the helm, while I sat in the bottom of the boat, taking peeps through the telescope at interesting objects in the landscape that seemed to be gliding past us, when suddenly we heard, from some distance ahead of us, a sound as of a horn being blown, the sound being taken up and repeated at various points both ahead and astern of us.

I shouted to the man at the helm, while the sound that I had heard increased rapidly in volume, and a long line of white foam, rendered luminous by the phosphorescent state of the water, appeared broad on our starboard beam, sweeping down upon us with appalling velocity.

We were approaching the Frenchman upon his starboard quarter, with the intention of pouring in our larboard broadside directly the two ships were fairly abreast, when our antagonist suddenly ported his helm, and threw himself right athwart our hawse, the evolution being performed exactly at the instant which rendered a collision unavoidable.

Profoundly disappointed at my non-success, and bitterly mortified at the insults to which I had been subjected by boarding the Yankee, I moodily returned to the Dolphin and, upon mounting to the deck, ordered the gig to be hoisted and the helm to be put up in order that we might return to the Eros, the royals of which were now just rising above the horizon to the westward.

Whenever, therefore, it became necessary for me to quit the helm for the purpose of taking an astronomical observation, or otherwise, I had to heave-to, and, occasionally, to shorten sail while doing so, which kept me pretty actively employed, off and on, all day.

This loss of head sail occurring at a moment when, having partially luffed to fire at us, the wind was well on her starboard quarter, the frigate now showed symptoms of flying up into the wind altogether; and although it was evident, from the sluggish way in which she did so, that the tendency was being strongly counteracted by her helm, I soon saw that her crew were powerless, and that fly into the wind she would, in spite of them.

I had no mind for this sort of thing, however, as we should probably hurt ourselves quite as much as our antagonist; so, holding on until we had only just room to clear the Guerrilla, and singing out for a second shot to be rammed home in the larboard guns, I eased our helm down just at the right moment, ranging up so close to the other brigantine that we almost grazed her side, when we exchanged broadsides at precisely the same instant, with terrible effect on both sides.