“What are you going to do?” demanded Herc, as Ned rapidly threw off his oilskins and divested himself of his heavy boots. The young man-of-war’s man stood poised in the stern for an instant of time, and then, as a white face was borne by the boat once more, he plunged overboard, his body cleaving the waves as neatly as a torpedo. So quickly had it all happened that hardly a man in the boat but Herc realized what the boy was going to do. Situated as they were, however, there was no time to indulge in speculation. Handling the boat took every ounce of energy and brain power they possessed. By a streak of luck, however, the boat had, during all the excitement, been allowed to drift to lee of the man clinging to the buoy. A wave literally smashed him against the side of the boat, the buoy fortunately striking first and taking off the force of the blow. In the flash of time accorded him, the fellow took advantage of his opportunity and clutched the gunwale. The next minute he was hauled aboard, dripping and almost gone. A more grateful man could not have been found in the universe. In the meantime, all sight of Ned and the middy had been lost. Not a man aboard the boat had any idea of where to look for them in the wild tumult about them. They might be struggling for their lives at almost any point beyond the oarsmen’s ken. The suspense was maddening to Herc. Strong swimmer as he knew Ned to be, it was doubtful if, with the added burden of the middy, the boy could battle for his life long. Suddenly a cry came from Stanley, who was pulling the bow oar. The wandering searchlight had, for an instant, shone upon two white faces on the crest of a wave a short distance off. The man shouted his information, and the boat was at once headed in that direction. All this time water had been breaking into the little craft. There being no time to bail, she was soon in a very loggy condition. As the three oarsmen remaining in her strove, with every sinew in their bodies, to urge her forward, she rode half lifelessly on the tumbling waters. “There they are!” yelled Herc suddenly. As he shouted a big wave bore down toward them, carrying with it two figures. They were rushed by the boat in the dark swelter of waters. Stanley leaned over, at imminent risk of the craft’s broaching to, and seized one of them in a firm grasp. It was the limp, unconscious figure of the midshipman, who had been torn from Ned’s rescuing arms. Stanley’s fingers had hardly closed on the middy’s collar before Herc reached over and grabbed his chum. He was just in time. Another instant and Ned, whose strength was fast deserting him after his struggle to rescue the middy, would have been borne far beyond hope of salvation. But the simultaneous desertion of two oars, brief though it was, proved disastrous to the boat. As a big gray-back swept down upon it, the little craft broached to and filled with water to the gunwale.