sea dropped a little, and the
_Dimbula_ began to roll from side to side till every inch of iron in
her was sick and giddy. But luckily they did not all feel ill at the
same time: otherwise she would have opened out like a wet paper box.

The Steam whistled warnings as he went about his business: it is in
this short, quick roll and tumble that follows a heavy sea that most
of the accidents happen, for then everything thinks that the worst is
over and goes off guard. So he orated and chattered till the beams and
frames and floors and stringers and things had learned how to lock
down and lock up on one another, and endure this new kind of strain.

They found ample time to practise, for they were sixteen days at sea,
and it was foul weather till within a hundred miles of New York. The
_Dimbula_ picked up her pilot and came in covered with salt and red
rust. Her funnel was dirty gray from top to bottom; two boats had been
carried away; three copper ventilators looked like hats after a fight
with the police; the bridge had a dimple in the middle of it; the
house that covered the steam steering-gear was split as with hatchets;
there was a bill for small repairs in the engine-room almost as long
as the screw-shaft; the forward cargo-hatch fell into bucket-staves
when they raised the iron cross-bars; and the steam-capstan had been
badly wrenched on its bed. Altogether, as the skipper said, it was "a
pretty general average."

"But she's soupled," he said to Mr. Buchanan. "For all her dead weight
she rode like a yacht. Ye mind that last blow off the Banks? I am
proud of her, Buck."

"It's vera good," said the chief engineer, looking along the
dishevelled decks. "Now, a man judgin' superfeecially would say we
were a wreck, but we know otherwise--by experience."

Naturally everything in the _Dimbula_ fairly stiffened with pride, and
the foremast and the forward collision-bulkhead who are pushing
creatures, begged the Steam to warn the Port of New York of their
arrival. "Tell those big boats all about us," they said. "They seem to
take us quite as a matter of course."

It was a glorious, clear, dead calm morning, and in single file, with
less than half a mile between each, their bands playing and their
tug-boats shouting and waving handkerchiefs, were the _Majestic_, the
_Paris_, the _Touraine_, the _Servia_, the _Kaiser Wilhelm II._, and
the _Werkendam_, all statelily going out to sea. As the _Dimbula_
shifted her helm to gi