astern with aching eyes, till his head alone was dimly seen in the far distance amid the snow-white track the ship had left behind. "Who was it fell?" was asked from the quarter deck. "Jack Buntline," many a voice replied. "Alas, 'twas poor Jack Buntline." "But two men were carried away with the broken yard," exclaimed the officer of the watch; "I saw them fall." A voice, faint and struggling for utterance, at that moment was heard from alongside. A rope from aloft was trailing overboard, and at the end a human form was clinging. Numbers hurried to assist their shipmate. "Be careful now, my men, or he also will be carried away," cried the officers. A rope with a bight was hove to him, but the struggling sailor durst not attempt to clutch it, lest on quitting one he might miss the other, and be borne, like his comrade, far away astern. Oh, not another instant could he cling on. If help cannot be sent him he too certainly must let go. Another rope was hove. This time more successfully, the bight fell over his shoulder. He passed an arm through it. "Now haul away," was the cry. He was hoisted half fainting on the deck. The surgeon was ready to attend him. "Who is it?" was asked. "Jack Buntline," was the answer. Once again Jack Buntline was preserved from sudden death, and what death more dreadful than to feel the life blood flowing freely through the veins, with youth, and strength, and many a fancied joy in prospect, friends looking on, eager to save yet powerless, and to be left alone on the cheerless boundless ocean, the stout ship flying fast and far away, and unable to return till long, long after the strongest swimmer must have sunk in the cold grasp of death. Jack knew and acknowledged with a grateful heart the arm which saved him. Away, away flew the ship. The sky overhead a clear deep-dazzling blue, not a cloud but that wind must have blown it from the atmosphere; the sea beneath was one mass of seething, hissing, foaming, madly-leaping waves; not upward, but rushing in frantic haste one over the other, the spray, like thickest snow drifts, following fast astern, torn, as it seemed, from the summit of the seas. Royal masts, and topgallant masts and yards had from the first been struck, top masts were housed,--still frantically onward flew the ship, scudding under bare poles. "What sea room has she?" was asked with many an anxious look into each others' eyes. "Not much on either hand--isles and reefs and rocks on every side abound," was the whispered answer. The typhoon howled louder than before. Land could be seen blue and distinct broad on the starboard beam, but though a sheltering port is there, the ship cannot be steered to reach it, but must run on, whatever may be the dangers ahead.