elieve 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.

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.

"No