"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 throw per 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 Deliveries, 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, grey clouds; and the wind bit like pincers as it fretted the spray into lacework on the flanks 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 organised 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 organised conspiracy on your part," the capstan gurgled, taking his cue from the mast."Organised 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 hove green water over the funnel. "As far as Cape Hatteras -" He drenched the bridge. "And is now going out to sea - to sea - to sea!" The third went out in three surges, making a clean sweep of a boat, which turned bottom up and sank in the darkening troughs alongside, while the broken falls whipped the davits. "That's all there is to it," seethed the white water roaring through the scuppers. " There's no animus in our proceedings. We're only meteorological corollaries." "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-bye." The wave that spoke so politely had travelled some distance aft, and found 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 clean smack. "Evidently that's what I'm made for," said the plate, closing again with a sputter of pride. "Oh, no, you don't, my friend!" The top of a wave was trying to get in from the outside, but as the plate did not open in that direction, 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.