his sailor eyes were otherwise occupied, and so he did not perceive the
enemy of love making the spring to seize him. Just as he was folding
his mate to his breast, he heard the warning cry for'ard, and it was
then too late to avert the catastrophe. In the same instant a sudden
wave struck the launch, and nearly turned her over, and the young wife
and husband, holding to nothing but one another, and simply sitting
upon an unprotected plank, were tipped out as easily as balls from a
capsized basket.

"Oh, this is too absurd!"

That was Guthrie's mental ejaculation in the astonishing first
moment. A deep-sea sailor, who had come through what he had come
through, to let himself be caught unawares by such a paltry mischance
as this! Then, what an unspeakable ass to have been so careless--to
have shown himself incapable of protecting his wife, after all his
boasts! Would he ever hear the last of it as long as he lived? Poor
little woman! How cold the water felt when he thought of her tender
skin. And her pretty dress, that she had set such store by, in which
she had intended to go to church with him on Sunday--utterly
destroyed, of course! Well, he must make shift to afford her another
and smarter one, and get it made quickly. She should have her pick and
choice. As the following wave soused his uprising head, slapping him
full in the face, so as to confuse and blind him for a second or two,
the fear that she might get "a dose of it" before they could pull her
out made him sharply anxious. If she got a bad cold, a shock to her
nerves, perhaps a serious illness, he would never forgive himself. And
what a sell that would be--what waste of this precious holiday, this
second honeymoon, so much sweeter than the first--after the weary
waiting for it!