ed ridiculous to bow to a mere passing head, when one
was on the eve of being swept away by the North Sea. Phyllis might have
done it. I gave a short shriek, and then it appeared that the head had
full control of the wave, for it stopped and let the wave rush by, to
show that it had a tall, brown, dripping body, sketchily clad in the
kind of thing that men dare to call a bathing-suit.

It did not seem strange at the time that William the Silent should be
shot from a wave as if by a catapult, and still less strange that
without a word he should seize my horse by the head and stop him. It
seemed the sort of thing that ought to happen to foreigners traveling in
Holland, if in need of succor.

"Oh, thank you so much!" I heard myself saying, just as if he had had on
a frock-coat and top-hat, and had stopped a hansom cab for me in Bond
Street.

"Not at all," I heard him reply, in the same London-in-the-season tone.
Then suddenly I thought of Stanley in the desert saying, "Dr.
Livingstone, I believe?" and my bare feet, and his dripping hair, and
the whole scene struck me so quaintly that I laughed out aloud;
whereupon he smiled a wet, brown smile, showing white teeth.

"I'm _not_ having hysterics," I spluttered, with my mouth full of spray.
"It's only--only--" and the spray choked me with its salt.

"Of course," said William the Silent, grave again, and so like the
portrait that I felt I must be a historical character, acting with him
in an incident forgotten or expurgated by Motley. "I'm so glad I came. I
saw you from further out, and thought something was wrong. But it's all
right now."

"Yes, thank you," I said meekly. "Why, you're an _Englishman_, aren't
you?"

"Dutch to the backbone," he answered; and then, suddenly conscious,
perhaps, that the (might one call it "feature"?) he had mentioned, was
too much exposed to be discussed thus lightly, he changed the subject.

"Here's your man," he said quickly, and forthwith fell to scolding in
vehement Dutch the unfortunate wretch who had waded to the rescue. The
horse, made sadder if not wiser by blows from his master, allowed
himself to be backed for a certain distance, until it was safe for me to
descend and take my postponed bath. I had but time to bow and murmur
more inane thanks, to receive another bow and polite murmur in return
(both murmurs being drowned by the sea) when the retrograde movement of
the bathing-machine parted me and my living life-preserver. He st