The plucky fellows evidently knew the water thereabouts; for they steered in a wide circle up behind a line of shoals, that acted like a mole in breaking the force of the waves, and bore down then obliquely upon the wreck, to leeward of which the water was comparatively smooth.

“Now then, look alive, my hearties!” they shouted, as they hooked on; and the admonition was scarcely needed.

Salve carried his almost unconscious wife down to the side, where they took her and laid her aft in the bottom of the boat; but she sat up with outstretched arms until her child had been passed to her from hand to hand, and was safe in them again, and then she watched anxiously for Salve to come too.  He sprang down into the boat the last, and then she fainted.

They put off, and stood in now on the crests of the waves straight for the beach, where a score of men in sea-boots and woollen jackets made a chain down into the water by holding each other’s hands, and drew the boat ashore.

They heard congratulations all round; and the man who had held the tiller exclaimed, as Salve silently grasped his hand—­

“It was resolutely done, Northman, to steer like that—­only that you did, you’d have passed the night upon the bank.”

The invitation of their rescuers to partake of such hospitality as they could offer was gladly accepted by the famished party from the wreck; and they followed the steersman, Ib Mathisen, and his comrades in among the downs, where the wind was no longer felt.  It was some miles to the fishing village; and they trudged on after it grew dark in silence, being too exhausted, and too dejected, to talk, their guides only keeping up a low conversation among themselves.  Salve carried the child, sheltering it from the pricking sand that blew in their faces when they came out upon the flat downs farther on, and supporting Elizabeth at the same time.

At last they saw the lights of a group of cottages.  The largest of these belonged to Ib Mathisen; and into this Salve and his wife were conducted, while the crew were distributed among the others.

Ib’s wife, a robust-looking woman of fifty or thereabouts, with a bold, straightforward expression in her tanned countenance, was standing over by the fire with her sleeves tucked up baking, when they came in.  She examined the incomers steadily for a moment without raising herself from her stooping position; but at the sight of Elizabeth and the child she exclaimed in a tone of compassion that was better than any more formal welcome, “The poor woman and her child have been cast ashore, Ib?” and set about caring for their wants at once, her grown-up daughter helping her to draw a bench to the fire for them, and putting a kettle on to make something warm for them to drink.  This was evidently not her first experience of the kind; and before long they had all put on dry clothes, and Elizabeth and the child were in a warm bed.  As she went about she put questions in a low voice to her husband; and Salve, who was sitting with his cheek in his hand staring into the fire, heard her say—­