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.
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.