"That's news," said a big centrifugal bilge pump. "I had an idea that you were employed to clean decks and things with. At least, I've used you for that more than once. I forget the precise number in thousands of gallons which I am guaranteed to pump in an hour; but I assure you, my complaining friends, that there is not the least danger. _I_ alone am capable of clearing any water that may find its way here. By my biggest delivery, we pitched then!" The sea was getting up in workmanlike style. It was a dead westerly gale, blown from under a ragged opening of green sky, narrowed on all sides by fat gray clouds; and the wind bit like pincers, as it fretted the spray into lace-work on the heads of the waves. "I tell you what it is," the foremast telephoned down its wire stays. "I'm up here, and I can take a dispassionate view of things. There's an organized conspiracy against us. I'm sure of it, because every single one of these waves is heading directly for our bows. The whole sea is concerned in it--and so's the wind. It's awful!" "What's awful?" said a wave, drowning the capstan for the hundredth time. "This organized conspiracy on your part," the capstan gurgled, taking his cue from the mast. "Organized bubbles and spindrift! There has been a depression in the Gulf of Mexico. Excuse me!" He leaped overside; but his friends took up the tale one after another. "Which has advanced--" _That_ wave threw green over the funnel. "As far as Cape Hatteras--" _He_ drenched the bridge. "And is now going out to sea--to sea--to sea!" _He_ went out in three surges, making a clean sweep of a boat, which turned bottom up and sank in the darkening troughs alongside. "That's all there is to it," seethed the broken water, roaring through the scuppers. "There's 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.