In the first chapter of the novel’s fourth part (“Narrative Continued by the Doctor: How the Ship Was Abandoned”), and in the two chapters that follow, Dr. Livesey is the narrator, relating the experiences of Trelawney’s group that take place during Jim’s separation from it. On board the ship in the early afternoon, Hunter tells the others that Jim has gone ashore, and they fear for his life. They know there’s no point in overpowering the six mutineers left on board, for there is no wind to carry the ship back to sea, so after a while, Livesey and Hunter take a boat and row to the island to see whether they can find out what has happened to Jim. The two mutineers left to guard the shore party’s boats see them but decide to stay where they are, and Livesey and Hunter steer around a bend, out of their sight. The doctor goes ashore. Within a hundred yards he discovers a stockade, a large blockhouse of logs equipped with firing ports, enclosing a clear spring of water, and itself enclosed by a strong six-foot fence without an opening. Because this structure is near the top of a hill, Livesey knows that a small group could hold it against a much larger force—indefinitely, if they had food and ammunition and kept close watch to avoid a surprise. As he thinks this, he hears the death-cry that Jim reported in the preceding part, and he believes that Jim has been killed. He runs to the boat where Hunter is waiting and they go back to the ship, where the rest of their group and one of the six remaining hands have been shaken by the cry.
Telling the coxswain, Israel Hands, that anyone who signals to Silver’s shore party will be shot, they load the boat with supplies, muskets, and ammunition. The six mutineers hurry below, but Redruth has been set to watch them, and they are trapped below decks. Joyce, Hunter, and Livesey take the boat ashore again and, as one of the watchers there runs to inform Silver of this, they take the supplies to the stockade and leave them with Joyce as guard. Hunter and Livesey return for a second load, and then Livesey alone rows back to the ship. He, Trelawney, Redruth, and Smollett load the boat again with as much as it can carry and drop the rest of the arms and their powder overboard. These four are ready to abandon the ship to the mutineers when Smollett calls to one of the men below, Abraham Gray, and orders him to come with them. There is a scuffle among the mutineers and then Gray, cut in the face, comes out and joins them. They shove off from the ship and strike out for shore.
In Chapter XVII (“Narrative Continued by the Doctor: The Jolly-Boat’s Last Trip”) the five men head again for shore with the boat severely overloaded. The tide is ebbing and they are nearly swamped, but they are making their way slowly when they realize that Hands and the other four left on the Hispaniola are now in possession of the ship’s “long-nine”—a long-range mounted gun—and its powder and shot. From their boat they can see Hands getting ready to load the gun, and Squire Trelawney, the best shot, aims his musket and fires. He misses Hands but hits one of the others. Then Silver’s party comes down to the beach. Some start out toward the squire’s group in one of their two boats, while others run along by the shore to head them off. They know it will be a race, but they are close to shore and they try for it, the ebbing tide now working for them and against the pirates’ boat. By now, however, Hands has readied the gun on deck and he fires. The shot whistles over their heads, but at their effort to back the boat out of Hands’ aim, it sinks, along with their supplies and three of their five muskets.
The five men wade to shore (Chapter XVIII, “Narrative Continued by the Doctor: End of the First Day’s Fighting”) and run for the stockade, hearing the pirates who remained on shore coming toward them. Both groups reach the enclosure at the same time. Trelawney and Livesey, along with Hunter and Joyce from the blockhouse, fire their muskets at the mutineers (who are armed only with pistols and have not reached their weapons’ range), hitting one. The others run for the trees. Still outside the stockade fence, Livesey and the others find that the fallen man is dead. But then one of the men in the trees shoots Redruth with a pistol, and, after he is brought into the blockhouse, the old gamekeeper dies.
Captain Smollett has brought his English flag ashore, and now he sets it on a pole above the stockade. The ship’s gun continues to fire on them, to little effect, for they are nearly out of its range. Smollett tells the doctor that they have plenty of arms but that, having lost most of their food when the boat sank, they will not be able to survive long, and he asks about the consort that Trelawney arranged at Bristol to come after them if they were late in returning. He is told that it will be a matter of months before help arrives, far too long, and so he sends two of the men to salvage what they can from the sunken boat, which will now be exposed at low tide. But they find that the mutineers are ahead of them, already bringing up these supplies, and that they have somehow armed themselves with muskets from what must have been a secret store. The captain has begun a log, setting down their names and situation, when Jim Hawkins, coming over the wall of the stockade, hails them.
