He was only just in
time to put one hand on each side of her slender waist, and hold her
tight so, when the big wave which he saw coming struck full tilt against
the vessel's flank, and broke in one white drenching sheet of foam
against her stern and quarter-deck.
The suddenness of the assault took Felix's breath away. For the first few
seconds he was only aware that a heavy sea had been shipped, and had wet
him through and through with its unexpected deluge. A moment later, he
was dimly conscious that his companion had slipped from his grasp, and
was nowhere visible. The violence of the shock, and the slimy nature of
the sea water, had made him relax his hold without knowing it, in the
tumult of the moment, and had at the same time caused Muriel to glide
imperceptibly through his fingers, as he had often known an ill-caught
cricket-ball do in his school-days. Then he saw he was on his hands and
knees on the deck. The wave had knocked him down, and dashed him against
the bulwark on the leeward side. As he picked himself up, wet, bruised,
and shaken, he looked about for Muriel. A terrible dread seized upon his
soul at once. Impossible! Impossible! she couldn't have been washed
overboard!
And even as he gazed about, and held his bruised elbow in his hand, and
wondered to himself what it could all mean, that sudden loud cry arose
beside him from the quarter-deck, "Man overboard! Man overboard!"
followed a moment later by the answering cry, from the men who were
smoking under the lee of the companion, "A lady! a lady! It's Miss Ellis!
Miss Ellis!"
He didn't take it all in.
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