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."
