Treasure Island

Jim looks out from the cabin and sees the pirates grouped together down the slope. He sees a man carving into a book with a knife. The pirates return to the house. One of them walks slowly toward John Silver, holding his hand closed in front of him. He gives Silver the black spot, indicating that the pirates mean to depose Silver as their leader and replace him with another. Noticing they used a page from a Bible, Silver scorns the men, saying, “You’ll all swing now, I reckon. What softheaded lubber had a Bible?” (283). He then demands to hear their grievances and then addresses each one. His speech affects the pirates. Silver explains to the men that he made a deal with the doctor in exchange for the treasure map, which he shows them. The appearance of the treasure map excites the pirates; “[t]hey leaped upon it like cats upon a mouse. It went from hand to hand, one tearing it from another” (288). Silver tells George Merry, the pirate who was to replace him as captain, “One more word of your sauce, and I’ll call you down and fight you” (288). The pirates re-elect Silver as their leader once more. Silver gives Jim the paper with the black spot as a “curios’ty” (289). Jim notes the page is from the Book of Revelation and contains the words, “Without are dogs and murderers” (289). Silver orders Merry to act as night watch, and the men go to sleep for the night.

In the morning they are awaked by the arrival of the doctor. John Silver tells the doctor as he approaches the stockade that Jim is with them. The doctor replies, “duty first and pleasure afterward” (292). The doctor enters the cabin, nods to Jim, and tends to the pirates’ injuries. Both the doctor and the pirates behave civilly, “as if nothing had occurred—as if he were still ship’s doctor and they still faithful hands before the mast” (293). The doctor explains, “I make it a point of honor not to lose a man for King George (God bless him!) and the gallows” (294). Once he is done tending the men, the doctor asks to talk with Jim. George Merry declines them permission, but Silver allows Jim to speak with the doctor so long as he promises not to run away. Jim promises. Silver walks with Jim to the fence, on the other side of which the doctor awaits. Silver sits nearby, out of earshot of Jim and the doctor. The doctor tells Jim that he was cowardly to leave the company, especially while the captain was ill. Jim weeps. The doctor tells Jim to hop the fence and run away with him, but Jim says that he promised Silver he would not do so, and so he doesn’t. Jim tells the doctor that the ship is safe in the North Inlet and recounts his adventures on the water. The doctor is relieved and excited by the news that the ship is safe. The doctor taunts Silver about finding the treasure, telling him, “don’t you be in any great hurry after that treasure” (300). After a little more chatter, the doctor retreats into the woods.

Silver says he heard the doctor telling Jim to hop the fence; he noticed that Jim said no. He says, “Jim that’s one to you. This is the first glint of hope I had since the attack failed, and I owe it you” (302). They sit and eat breakfast with the pirates at a fire. Silver says of Jim to the pirates, “I’ll take him in a line when we go treasure hunting, for we’ll keep him like so much gold, in case of accidents” (304). They set off to find the treasure. Silver carries two guns and several pistols, and drags Jim along by a line. The other men carry shovels and provisions. They follow the directions on the treasure map, which read, “Tall tree, Spyglass shoulder, bearing a point to the N. of N.N.E.” (307). They “ascend the slope toward the plateau” (308) and come into an area of lush trees and shrubs. One of the men suddenly shouts, spotting a human skeleton beneath a pine tree. He is wearing the remnants of sea cloth, and the men recognize him as a seaman. Silver realizes that the skeleton’s bones point toward the treasure. The men discuss whether Flint might still be alive and convince themselves that he must be dead. The men continue on the path but much more cautiously than before.

The men pause on their journey up the plateau. As they talk about Flint, they hear a voice singing in the woods. The pirates become frightened, thinking that it is the ghost of Flint. John Silver tries to calm them down. The voice starts again, calling the name Darby M’Graw repeatedly. Silver recognizes the voice as Ben Gunn’s. Upon realizing who the voice belongs to, the men calm down and continue their journey. The men pass two tall trees before finding the one they believe the treasure is buried under. This third tree “rose nearly two hundred feet into the air above a clump of underwood; a giant of a vegetable, with a red column as big as a cottage” (321). The pirates grow excited as they approach the large tree. They begin to run, then reach “a great excavation, not very recent, for the sides had fallen in and grass had spouted on the bottom” (323). The treasure, however, is gone: “All was clear to probation. The cache had been found and rifled: the seven hundred thousand pounds were gone!” (323).

John Silver passes Jim a pistol and tells him, “stand by for trouble” (324). They move to the other side of the large pit, away from the pirates. The pirates jump into the pit and dig for any remaining gold. They find only two guineas. They climb back out of the excavation. As George Merry is about to lead the pirates to charge against Jim and Silver, three gunshots fire from the woods. Merry falls into the pit. Another man is injured, and the remaining three run away. Silver fires at Merry as well. The doctor, Gray, and Ben Gunn emerge from the woods. Together they all chase down the three pirates who escaped. Silver follows behind. As they walk to the shore, the doctor tells Jim and Silver what happened. Ben Gunn had dug up the treasure under the tree and “carried it on his back, in many weary journeys, from the foot of the tall pine to a cave he had on the two-pointed hill at the northeast angle of the island” (329). The next day, the doctor gave Silver the map to where the treasure had previously laid. The men then went to the cave where the treasure was stored.

Back on the shore, Jim and company reach the small boats. They destroy one and get aboard the other. They row to the North Inlet, around nine miles away. They enter Rum Cove and walk up to Ben Gunn’s cave, where the treasure is hidden. The inside of the cave is “a large, airy place, with a little spring and a pool of clear water, overhung with ferns. The floor was sand” (332). In a corner is a large pile of coins and bars of gold. They eat dinner inside the cave. Jim says, “Never, I am sure, were people gayer or happier” (333).

The next morning they set to work transporting the gold from the cave to the Hispaniola. The treasure includes coins from all over the world: “English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moidores and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces” (335). They load the treasure onboard the ship for several days. Jim narrates, “By every evening a fortune had been stowed aboard, but there was another fortune waiting for the morrow” (336). They can hear the remaining three pirates on the island singing and hunting. They decide to leave the pirates behind with a store of goods. They fly the English flag from the Hispaniola. As they depart the island on the ship, the pirates come to the beach “with their arms raised in supplication” (338). The doctor shouts to the pirates about the provisions they have left. When one of the pirates sees that the ship will continue to sail without them, he fires a shot in the ship’s direction. They sail to a port in “Spanish America” (339). At sundown they come into a lively harbor. They go ashore for the evening. When they return to the ship, Ben Gunn confesses that he let Silver go on a shore boat with a sack of coins. Jim says, “I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him” (340). They arrive back in Bristol. All of the men receive “an ample share of the treasure” (341). They never hear from John Silver again. Though “bar silver” (342) that Captain Flint buried remains on the island, Jim says:

“oxen and wainropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: ‘Pieces of eight! pieces of eight!’” (342).