no animus in our proceedings. We're a
meteorological corollary."

"Is it going to get any worse?" said the bow anchor, chained down to
the deck, where he could only breathe once in five minutes.

"Not knowing, can't say. Wind may blow a bit by midnight. Thanks
awfully. Good-by."

The wave that spoke so politely had travelled some distance aft, and
got itself all mixed up on the deck amidships, which was a well deck
sunk between high bulwarks. One of the bulwark plates, which was hung
on hinges to open outward, had swung out, and passed the bulk of the
water back to the sea again with a wop.

"Evidently that's what I'm made for," said the plate, shutting up
again with a sputter of pride. "Oh, no, you don't, my friend!"

The top of a wave was trying to get in from outside, but the plate did
not open in that direction, and the defeated water spurted back.

"Not bad for five-sixteenths of an inch," said the bulwark plate. "My
work, I see, is laid down for the night;" and it began opening and
shutting, as it was designed to do, with the motion of the ship.

"We are not what you might call idle," groaned all the frames
together, as the "Dimbula" climbed a big wave, lay on her side at the
top, and shot into the next hollow, twisting as she descended. A huge
swell pushed up exactly under her middle, and her bow and stern hung
free, with nothing to support them, and then one joking wave caught
her up at the bow, and another at the stern, while the rest of the
water fell away from under her, just to see how she would like it, and
she was held up at the two ends, and the weight of the cargo and the
machinery fell on the groaning iron keels and bilge stringers.

"Ease off! Ease off there!" roared the garboard strake. "I want an
eighth of an inch play. D'you hear me, you young rivets!"

"Ease off! ease off!" cried the bilge stringers. "Don't hold us so
tight to the frames!"

"Ease off!" grunted the deck beams, as the "Dimbula" rolled fearfully.
"You've cramped our knees into the stringers and we can't move. Ease
off, you flat-headed little nuisances."

[Illustration: "AN UNUSUALLY SEVERE PITCH ... HAD LIFTED THE BIG
THROBBING SCREW NEARLY TO THE SURFACE."]

Then two converging seas hit the bows, one on each side, and fell away
in torrents of streaming thunder.

"Ease off!" shouted the forward collision bulkhead. "I want to crumple
up, but I'm stiffened in every direction. Ease off, you dirty little
forge filings. Let