Treasure Island

Jim describes the island as he walks. He crosses a “marshy tract full of willows” (127) and comes upon “the skirts of an open piece of undulating, sandy country, about a mile long” (127). He explores the island. He sees flowers, snakes, and “oaklike trees” (128). The marsh steams in the sun, and the Spyglass hill is visible in the haze. Jim hears men approaching and hides under an oak tree. Jim hears John Silver’s voice and crawls quietly in that direction to hear what he is saying to his companion. Silver is flattering the man, telling him, “If I hadn’t took to you like pitch, do you think I’d have been here a-warning of you?” (130).

As the man responds, there is a loud noise in the distance, “a sound like a cry of anger, then another on the back of it, and the one horrid, long-drawn scream” (131). The man jumps at the sound, but Silver does not. Silver says, “I reckon that’ll be Alan” (132), and the man realizes that John Silver has taken part in having him killed. The man turns to talk away; Silver throws his crutch at the man’s back, and he falls. Silver leaps on top of the man and “twice buried his knife up to the hilt in that defenseless body” (133). Jim briefly faints from what he has witnessed. Silver blows a whistle. Jim retreats from the scene. He hears Silver’s buccaneers coming and begins to run, drawing near the foot of a hill.

Jim sees a figure “leap with great rapidity behind the trunk of a pine” (136). He turns and runs but the figure reappears. Jim pauses, and the man comes forward from behind a tree trunk and throws himself at Jim’s feet, holding out “his clasped hands in supplication” (138). The man’s name is Ben Gunn. He says he hasn’t spoken with a “Christian” for three years. His skin is burned, and his clothes are ragged. After being marooned on the island three years ago, he has lived on goats, berries, and oysters. Ben tells Jim that he is a rich man. Jim believes Ben has gone crazy in his isolation. Ben asks if the ship in the harbor is Flint’s, and Jim replies that Flint is dead but that some of his hands are onboard, including John Silver.

Jim tells Ben about Silver’s planned mutiny. Ben proposes a deal in which he helps Jim and his crew in exchange for “one thousand pounds out of money that’s as good as a man’s own already” (142) and passage home. Jim agrees. Ben tells Jim his story. Ben was on Flint’s ship when Flint buried the treasure. Three years later, Ben was on another ship when he told the crew about the buried treasure and convinced them to help him find it. After 12 days of looking for the treasure, they didn’t find it, and the crew marooned Ben on the island with a musket and “a spade and pickax” (144) as punishment.

Jim and Ben plan to get back onboard the Hispaniola using Ben’s boat, which he made himself and keeps under a white rock. After hearing a cannon shot go off in the distance, they run together to the anchorage. As they run through the woods, they hear “a volley of small arms” (146) and see the Union Jack flag in the woods before them.