The garboard strake is the very bottom-most plate in the bottom of a ship, and the “Dimbula’s” garboard strake (she was a flat-bottomed boat) was nearly three-quarters of an inch mild steel.

“The sea pushes me up in a way I should never have expected,” the strake went on, “and the cargo pushes me down, and between the two I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“When in doubt, hold on,” rumbled the steam, making head in the boilers.

“Yes, but there’s only dark and cold and hurry down here, and how do I know whether the other plates are doing their duty?  Those bulwark plates up above, I’ve heard, aren’t more than five-sixteenths of an inch thick—­scandalous, I call it.”

“I agree with you,” said a huge web frame by the main cargo hatch.  He was deeper and thicker than all the others, and curved half-way across the ship’s side in the shape of half an arch, to support the deck where deck beams would have been in the way of cargo coming up and down.  “I work entirely unsupported, and I observe that I am the sole strength of this vessel, so far as my vision extends.  The responsibility, I assure you, is enormous.  I believe the money value of the cargo is over one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.  Think of that!”

“And every pound of it dependent on my personal exertions.”  Here spoke a sea-valve that communicated directly with the water outside and was seated not very far from the garboard strake.  “I rejoice to think that I am a Prince-Hyde valve, with best Para rubber facings.  Five patents cover me—­I mention this without pride—­five separate and several patents, each one finer than the other.  At present I am screwed fast.  Should I open, you would immediately be swamped.  This is incontrovertible!”

Patent things always use the longest words they can.  It is a trick they pick up from their inventors.

“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!”