Now, the stringers of the ship are long iron girders, so to speak,
that run lengthways from stern to bow. They keep the iron frames (what
are called ribs in a wooden ship) in place, and also help to hold
the ends of the deck beams which go from side to side of the ship.
Stringers always consider themselves most important, because they are
so long. In the "Dimbula" there were four stringers on each side--one
far down by the bottom of the hold, called the bilge stringer; one a
little higher up, called the side stringer; one on the floor of the
lower deck; and the upper-deck stringers that have been heard from
already.

"You will take steps, will you?" This was a long, echoing rumble.
It came from the frames; scores and scores of them, each one about
eighteen inches distant from the next, and each riveted to the
stringers in four places. "We think you will have a certain amount of
trouble in _that_;" and thousands and thousands of the little rivets
that held everything together whispered: "You will! You will! Stop
quivering and be quiet. Hold on, brethren! Hold on! Hot punches!
What's that?"

Rivets have no teeth, so they can't chatter with fright; but they did
their best as a fluttering jar swept along the ship from stern to bow,
and she shook like a rat in a terrier's mouth.

An unusually severe pitch, for the sea was rising, had lifted the big
throbbing screw nearly to the surface, and it was spinning round in a
kind of soda water--half sea and half air--going much faster than was
right, because there was no deep water for it to work in. As it sank
again, the engines--and they were triple-expansion, three cylinders in
a row--snorted through all their three pistons: "Was that a joke, you