In another moment the savages would have gained the deck, but while they were driven back with boarding pikes and cutlasses by some of the crew, others sprang aloft to make sail, and before they had time to concert a fresh plan of attack the schooner with a fine breeze ran from among them. As she swept close to the shore firing among the savages, two boats put off to her; but many on board were desperately wounded, while several more men lay dead on the beach. The canoes no longer dared approach her. The savages deserved punishment. The survivors of the schooner's crew wreaked a severe vengeance on their heads, and then sailed away for their destination, leaving the natives to retaliate on the next vessel which might visit their shores. Jack reached Sydney in safety, and quitting the schooner, entered on board a merchant brig, the _Hope_, bound for England. "I think that I should like once more to visit my native land after all the adventures I have gone through," observed Jack to a shipmate; but he experienced the truth of the saying, "Man proposes, but God disposes." "Yes," replied his shipmate; "nothing shall stop me from getting there, depend on that." "There's many a thing may stop you, Bill," answered Jack. "We may be cast away or founder, or be taken by the enemy, or you may fall overboard and be drowned, or fifty other things may happen to you. I would not dare to make so sure if I were you." "All nonsense, Jack," said the other; "when a man has a mind to do a thing he may do it. That's my opinion. I don't care who knows it." On sailed the _Hope_ on her voyage, but in crossing the Indian Ocean she got into a dead calm. The sun sent its almost perpendicular rays with intense fury down on the heads of the crew. The water shone like a slab of polished steel. Not a breath of air came to fan their cheeks or to move the sluggish sails hanging uselessly against the masts. The heat on deck was intense, the water looked as if it must be cooler and more refreshing. "Who's for a swim?" cried one. "I am, I am," answered several voices, and in a few seconds a considerable number of the crew were overboard, swimming about like fish in the clear water. How they kicked and splashed about and revelled in the cool fluid. They felt like prisoners set free from their dark cells. Every man who could swim but a few strokes, and some even of those stupid fellows who had neglected to learn one of the most requisite of ordinary accomplishments for landsmen as well as seamen, let themselves down over the ship's side by ropes, and holding on tight kicked and splashed, and shouted with the rest. Jack, among the boldest of the swimmers, made large circuits round the ship, accompanied by his messmate, Bill Sikes. One encouraging the other they increased their distance from the vessel.