 The story follows Captain Tom Lingard, the recurring protagonist of The Lingard Trilogy, who was on his way to help a native friend regain his land when he falls in love with a married woman whose yacht he saves from foundering.In the 1925 Gresham Publishing Company edition there is an Author's Note that was written in 1920, in which Conrad gives background as to the writing of "The Rescue".After he began writing, he set the novel down in 1898 and picked it back up in 1918.