"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!"
"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.