My first thought was for Helga, but she was rising even as I looked, and the next moment was at my side. 'For God's sake!' I cried, 'lower away your sail, or your stem will grind this raft to pieces! We are two--a girl and a man--shipwrecked people. I implore you to help us to get on board you!' A lantern was held over the side, and the face of the man who held it showed out to the touch of the lustre like a picture in a _camera obscura_. The rays of the lantern streamed fairly upon us, and the man roared out: 'Ay! it's a raft, Jacob, and there are two of 'em, and one a gal. Chuck the man a rope's-end and he'll haul the raft alongside.' 'Look out!' shouted another voice from the after-part of the little vessel, and some coils of rope fell at my feet. I instantly seized the line, and, Helga catching hold too, we strained our united weight at it, and the raft swung alongside the craft at the moment that she lowered her sail. 'Catch hold of the lady's hands!' I shouted. In a moment she was dragged over the side. I handed up the little parcel, containing her mother's picture and Bible, and followed easily, scrambling over the low rail. The man who grasped the lantern held it aloft to survey us, and I saw the dusky glimmer of two other faces past him. 'This is a queer start!' said he. 'How long have you been knocking about here?' 'You shall have the yarn presently,' said I; 'but before the raft goes adrift, it's well you should know that she is pretty handsomely stocked with provisions--all worth bringing aboard.' 'Right!' he cried. 'Jacob, take this here lantern and jump over the side, and hand up what ye find.' All this had happened too suddenly to suffer me as yet to be sensible of what came little short of a miraculous deliverance; for had the craft been a vessel of burthen, or had there been any weight in the soft night air still blowing, she would have sheared through us as we lay asleep, and scattered the raft and drowned us out of hand--nay, before we could have cried 'O God!' we should have been suffocating in the water. I believed her at first a fishing-boat. She was lugger-rigged and open, with a little forecastle in her bows, as I had noticed while the lantern dangled in the hand of the man who surveyed us. Yet, had she been a line-of-battle ship, she could not, as a refuge and a means of deliverance after the horror and peril of that flat platform of raft, have filled me with more joy and thanksgiving. 'The worst is over, Helga!' I cried, as I seized the girl's cold and trembling hand. 'Here is a brave little vessel to carry us home, and you will see Kolding again, after all!'