When she returned to consciousness again, Salve was by her side.  They were fastened to the same rope, and all the crew had come aft, and lashed themselves there.  The brig lay over on her side upon the inner bank, with her stern up, and with the mainmast lying over the side.  She kept lifting and striking heavily against the bottom, while heavy seas, one after another, swept her forward.

“The rigging to leeward must be cleared away, and we shall get off, lads!” shouted Salve, through his hollowed hand; and he sprang over with an axe to do it.  Nils Buvaagen came to his assistance, and Elizabeth, in intense anxiety, watched the two men while they cut away rope after rope, holding on by the rigging all the time, the sea breaking over them, so that sometimes they were hardly visible through the drench of water.  After one last stroke, which freed them from the mast, Salve was by her side again.

The next moment they were carried over the bank by the yellow churning surge, and with a succession of jerks and bumps, over to the shoal inside, where the bow-timbers were stove in—­“the best thing that could have happened to them,” Salve said, coolly, “as it would relieve the vessel of the weight of water in the hold, and they might now be washed up nearer to the beach.”

At length, after a couple of long and terrible hours, as twilight was coming on, and the face of the downs was becoming darker in the gloomy atmosphere, it seemed as if the vessel had finally settled.  The waves now broke less frequently over her, but left a heavy deposit of sand upon the deck when they did break.  It seemed likely that she would go to pieces, plank by plank, if they remained as they were through the night, or else perhaps they would be buried in sand.

On one side of the shoal—­on the side where they saw people upon the beach—­ran a channel with a strong current; and they, perceived that they had been fortunate to some extent in not having been washed right over into it, as in that case the brig must inevitably have sunk:  on the other side there was navigable water, though with breakers here and there.  Their signals, they knew, had been seen by the people on shore; but, to their despair, they saw them all at once disappear.

Salve, upon that, set to work to lash some planks together for a raft; and the crew followed his example with whatever they could lay their hands upon that would float.  His idea was, to try and get Elizabeth and the child to land by tying them securely to the raft, and trust to his own swimming powers and address to reach the shore with the line he was attaching to it; and the only question then would be, whether he would be able to haul it to land against the strong back-suck of the receding waves, that left every time a long stretch of dry sand behind them.  Elizabeth was sitting meanwhile on the cabin-stairs, scarcely in a condition to comprehend what was passing.

As Salve was occupied with this work, he suddenly heard a shout of joy round him.  From behind a projection in the downs a group of men had appeared, carrying a large boat.  They stopped at a corner of the beach.  A number of them took their seats in the boat; and as a wave was curling over to break, the others ran her down, and the back flow carried her out to sea, the men setting to work at once with all their might at the oars.