The steamer went ahead some distance before she stopped; and Jack and his struggling enemy were left far astern in the rolling waves. Our hero, as heroes always are, was cool and self-possessed. He could not help wondering at the stupidity of his topmate in making such a fuss at such a momentous time, when his safety absolutely depended upon a careful husbanding of all his strength. But Sam continued to kick and struggle till his wind gave out; and then, when he could kick and struggle no more, he began to take the thing more coolly: in other words, he was on the point of going to the bottom, mystically rendered in the seamen’s vernacular as “Davy Jones’s locker.” Jack, who had all the time behaved himself in a very orderly and circumspect manner, kept his eye on the burning fuze of the life-buoy, which had been ignited by the act of being detached from its beckets at the stern of the vessel. It was quite near him; for it had been dropped into the water the instant the cry which indicated the accident had sounded through the ship. When Sam showed signs of the exhaustion which rendered it safe for his topmate to approach him, Jack swam up to him, and seized him by one of his hands. The convulsive clutch with which the drowning man closed his hand upon his enterprising deliverer assured the latter that the danger of being carried down with him was not yet over. Jack was compelled to “pay out” well to avoid this peril: but, after one more desperate struggle, the unfortunate man was quiet again; and Jack succeeded by the exercise of a great deal of well-expended strength in towing Becket to the life-buoy, to the supporters of which he secured him as well as he could. Jack Somers was not made of iron, though he is the hero of our story; and, by the time he had placed Becket in a position of comparative safety, he began to think it was about time for a boat to come to his relief. He was thoroughly worn out by his exertions; and when her glanced over the tops of the waves, which were tumbling the life-buoy about in a very unceremonious manner, he was appalled to see the steamer apparently a mile off. To add to his consternation, the pyrotechnic apparatus on the life-buoy had been extinguished, either by the spray or by the limitation of its material. The prospect was exceedingly dark and gloomy, and there were some strong indications that the career of Jack Somers in the navy would be completed with the close of the tenth chapter. Our sailor-boy could not help thinking of his mother, and the assurance he had given her that he was just as safe on board a man-of-war as in the cottage at Pinchbrook; and perhaps he might have been if he had had the worldly-minded prudence to remain on the deck of the Harrisburg, instead of trusting his carcass to the uncertain mercies of an Atlantic sea to save the life of a worthless fellow who had taken the trouble to publish himself as his enemy.