The Fetters of Freedom Author:Cyrus Townsend Brady General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1913 Original Publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company Subjects: Fiction / General Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary Fiction / Medical Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you bu... more »y the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III THE CORN SHIP OF ALEXANDRIA A Uttle group of men stood before the break of the poop of a large merchant ship about the size and build of the ill-fated Isis, belonging in fact to the same imperially licensed fleet of ships. They were sheltered in some degree from the furious storm from the east- northeast which blew upon the ship, by the high poop and the slight overhang of the deck above. For several days they had been tempest-tossed and at the mercy of this furious gale which the sailors called Euraquilo. They had sought to beat up into it, but its force had been so great that they had been compelled, first to furl the great mainsail, and then to strike the yard to the deck. After they had thus lowered and secured it, the labouring of the great ship in the immense seas raised by the storm had rendered it advisable to lighten her by getting rid of the immense and weighty spar, which accordingly they had with some difficulty cast overboard. They were drifting now before the wind, and only the hardest kind of work with the huge steering-oar, thrust out of an after port just forward of the cabin, kept the ship from broaching to and falling into the trough of the sea. Their endeavours to keep the ship hove to were supplemented by a little sail called the artemon, a small portion ofwhich was spread on a supplementary mast and yard, which raked out from the bows of the ship, like the bowsprit and spritsail yard of later days. Skilful and resourceful seamen were aboa...« less