I am obliged to use these metaphors, otherwise I could give no explanation of my condition, seized upon against my will, and torn from all those moorings of reason to which I clung with desperation, as long as I had the strength.

But the bomb failed to explode, and an ebb tide setting in, broke the stern moorings and drove her sideways on the shore.

Deep mines were laid to guard the water below the net, but although these were moored at some considerable distance from the barrage, trouble was experienced owing to the mines dragging their moorings in the strong tide-way and fouling the nets.

" She was panicky with knowledge that somehow her emotions had managed to slip their moorings and get beyond her handling.

It seemed as though they had cast loose from their safe moorings, and were adrift upon an uncharted sea.

A cannon that breaks its moorings suddenly becomes some strange, supernatural beast.

Although, before the boat got under weigh, my lurking fears of explosion were great, they were much enhanced just after starting, in consequence of an opposition boat being loosed from her moorings at the same minute that our vessel got clear of the levee.

He sprang into it, and attempted instantly to push off, for he still saw nobody in it but himself; but the barque for a while resisted his efforts; till, on his feeling a wish to drown himself, or to do any thing rather than return to that detested house, it suddenly loosed itself from its moorings, and dashed away with him over the sea, as if in a fury.

And besides practice in landing on this difficult coast, we experienced the difficulties involved in having suddenly to slip our cables and then, when the weather allowed of it, coming to at our former moorings.

" But fortune or Allah had not finished the "strong affliction" whereby Mahomet was forced to cast off from his moorings and venture into strange and perilous seas.

It was as if the little fleet of human souls had finally cast its moorings and ventured into the unpathed waters of temporal dominion under the command of one whose skill in pilotage was as yet unknown.

The Ostend packet, lying beside the quay in full sight of the travellers, lurched giddily at her moorings.

No sooner had the ship started from her moorings, and Nep saw that his master was being borne away, than he gave a piteous howl, and with one bound parted the line which held him, and plunging into the tide, made vigorous attempts to reach the ship.

This, and the example set by French Pete, encouraged the rest of the oyster-boats to attempt to ride out the night; but they looked carefully to their moorings and put out spare anchors.

As we swing round to our moorings, we pass numerous line-of-battle-ships and frigates bearing the flags of England, France, and Sardinia, but look in vain and with disappointment for the star-spangled banner.

She must not let him sweep her away from her moorings.

The shirt fell, shot loose from its moorings, and the leading Sikhs gave a shout as they started to rush forward.

The men, with the local band, were gathered at the steeply sloping foot of the main street, where the steamer came to her moorings.

The moment they had reached their point of destination, and had fastened the boat to its moorings, the men landed their oars, and immediately commenced singing a simple yet touching melody, wherewith it was their custom to apprise their employers of their arrival. 'Will they come forth this evening, think you, Vittorio?' said one boatman to the other.

It's a thousand times worse than all those saints the Spaniards tack on to their vesselslike a line of boats towing a ship up to her moorings!"

" "I wish to heaven his lordship would cut adrift from his moorings alongside that craft, Captain Cuffe.

Mr. Sam Bossom, having poled back to the towpath, stepped ashore, made fast his bow moorings, stood and watched the two childish figures as they passed up the last slope of the garden out of sight, and proceeded to deliver his remaining hundredweights of coalfirst, however, peering down the manhole and listening, to assure himself that all was quiet below.

" This marine metaphor, as we afterward learned, meant only that she would sail some time in the course of the summer; but we, in our trustful inexperience, supposed that the brig must be all ready to cast off her moorings, and the announcement threw us into all the excitement and confusion of hasty preparation for a start.

The ship was rolling and labouring heavily, and Mahood's trunk, having in some way broken from its moorings, was sliding back and forth across the cabin floor.

CHAPTER III HORACE MANN AND ANTIOCH COLLEGE The cataclysm of the Civil War, in which as the preceding pages show I had been involved, had shaken me in my old moorings.