em 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--

"Perhaps he was the owner of the vessel himself?"

"Yes, she was all the property we possessed," Salve answered, quietly.
"But we are none the less grateful to your husband for rescuing us, and
we have unfortunately very little to thank him with for venturing his
life out on the banks in such weather."

"So you've been at that game again, Ib," said the wife, turning to her
husband reproachfully, but not seeming altogether sincere in her
reproach.

Turning to Salve then she said a little curtly, "For the like of that we
take no payment," adding in a milder tone, "We have two sons ourselves
who ply to Norway--there's a bad coast there too."

Salve was pale and worn out with over-exertion, and after taking a
mouthful of food he lay down to rest. But he could not sleep, and
towards morning he was lying awake listening to the dull booming of the
distant sea. Elizabeth was tossing about feverishly and talking in her
sleep. Her brain was evidently busy with the terrors of the previous
night, and from occasional words it seemed as if he had a share in her
thoughts. He lay and listened, though there was not much to be made out
of her disjointed utterances. She grew more restless, and began to talk
more excitedly--

"Never! never!" she said, vehemently; "he shall never hear a word about
the brig," and she went on then in a confidential whisper--

"Shall he, Gjert? He shall find us in our berth, or else he will think
we are afraid."

Salve kissed her forehead tenderly, but with a sigh. There had been a
motive then, after all, at the bottom of that display of confidence
which had occasioned him such pangs of self-reproach.

A couple of hours after he was on the way down to the sea to look at the
brig. The general aspect of the world about him was in harmony with his
mood. The wind whistled over the dreary sand-hills, whirling the sand in
clouds in among the downs that stretched away like a storm-tossed sea
into the distance, in every variety of desolate and jagged outline. Upon
the melancholy shore a sea-gull or two were circling round some old
black stumps of wreck that protruded from the sand; whil