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 17 ("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.
