"That's all right. We'll be easier in an hour or two. First the
wind and then the rain; soon you may make sail again! Grrraaaaah!
Drrrraaaa! Drrrrrp! I have a notion that the sea is going down
already. If it does you'll learn something about rolling. We've only
pitched till now. By the way, aren't you chaps in the hold a little
easier than you were?"

There was just as much groaning and straining as ever, but it was not
so loud or squeaky in tone; and when the ship quivered she did not
jar stiffly, like a poker hit on the floor, but gave a supple little
waggle, like a perfectly balanced golf club.

"We have made a most amazing discovery," said the stringers, one after
another; "a discovery that entirely changes the situation. We have
found, for the first time in the history of shipbuilding, that the
inward pull of the deck beams and the outward thrust of the frames
locks us, as it were, more closely in our places, and enables us to
endure a strain which is entirely without parallel in the records of
marine architecture."

The steam turned a laugh quickly into a roar up the foghorn. "What
massive intellects you great stringers have!" he said, softly, when he
had finished.

"We, also," began the deck beams, "are discoverers and geniuses. We
are of opinion that the support of the hold-pillars materially helps
_us_. We find that we lock upon them when we are subjected to a heavy
and singular weight of sea above."

Here the "Dimbula" shot down a hollow, lying almost on her side, and