leep.

Something came toward me, bluish. Was it a monster of the deep hungry
for the life that was so fast dying out?

It seized me. I was born upward on a great wave, and swept off into the
light. The claws of some monster, or the arms of some friend, held me
close. Which was it?

Some power of good or evil, beastly or human, had dragged me into the
sand, where white foam curled around me, and the sun struck down upon my
eyes like fire.

Some man was thanking another for a great favor; a crowd of people came
swarming around me. I attempted to open my eyes, but the water dripping
down from my hair came into them sharp and salt.

"Is she sick? Is she afraid? Do tell who it is?"

These questions came from women who had rushed up from the waters, and
flocked around me like mermaids. I did not care about them, but by and
by it came to me that men might be there as well. I lifted my hand,
swept the wet hair back from my face, and, with a smarting pain in my
eyes, saw my deliverer.

His blue garments were black with dripping water, the thick hair
streamed over his forehead, his bare feet looked hard and powerful on
the sand. It was the man under whose admiring eyes I had blushed and
trembled.

"My preserver!" said I, clasping my wet fingers in an ecstasy of
gratitude; "shall I ever live to thank you for the poor life you have
saved?"

He smiled, he shook his head; I am afraid he laughed, such was his joy
and exultation; yet the modesty of true greatness possessed him still.

"It is nothing," he said. "A wave knocked you head-foremost--that was
all."

I knew better. It was the inherent greatness of a noble soul that
impelled him to make nothing of his own heroic act. He must have
supported me miles on miles in those stalwart arms. No protest of his
could lessen the bravery of his action or the force of my gratitude. If
woman's gratitude and woman's love are anything, his reward shall be
great.

They bore me into that weather-beaten cubby-house, and there, with the
help of E. E., my dripping garments were taken off, my wet hair done up
snugly under the braids that had been left behind, and, filled with
tender gratitude, I walked up to my hero in blue before going to my
apartment in the hotel.

"Let me see you to-morrow," said I, pressing the hand of that heroic
man. "Then I may find language to express my life-long gratitude."

He bowed; he drew his hand, with evident reluctance, from my clasp, and
retreated