Going to one of the gun ports in the blockhouse wall (Chapter 20, "Silver's Embassy"), Jim sees Silver and another man just outside the stockade. Captain Smollett goes to the doorway to talk with Silver, allowing him to climb over the fence. He waits while Silver struggles with his crutch on the sandy knoll, and he refuses to let the erstwhile cook, now calling himself "Captain Silver," enter the house. Silver says he has come to discuss terms, after the trouble of the previous night when the pirates, all drunk but Silver, were attacked and one was killed with a spike. Smollett acts nonchalant, although he does not know what Silver means, but Jim remembers Ben Gunn's promise that, if the pirates camped on shore, there would be "widders in the morning." Silver tries to get Smollett and the others to give his group the map, assuring him that he will then take them without harm off the island to safety — or, if the captain would prefer, will leave them provisions and send a ship to rescue them. Smollett replies with his own terms: If the pirates will surrender, he'll put them in irons and take them back to England for trial. Angrily, Silver struggles to his foot and leaves, making dire threats.
Smollett turns back into the house, as Chapter 21 ("The Attack") begins, to find that all but Gray have left their posts to witness the parlay, and he rebukes them. Then he tells them the attack will come within an hour, but that they are in a better position and can defeat the larger force. They prepare to defend the blockhouse, and as the day begins to heat up they wait. After a little over an hour, Joyce sees one of the pirates approaching and fires. The attackers come in from all sides. As shots are exchanged, one hits Livesey's musket and destroys it. Four of the pirates get over the fence. Two more are killed, and one runs away. Others continue to fire from the woods outside the fence. The four inside the enclosure swarm the house, injuring Hunter, and soon all are fighting in the yard with cutlasses. The battle is short. The surviving pirates retreat. But Hunter and the captain are injured, and Joyce is dead. Still, the group in the stockade has bettered the odds in their favor, for — counting the man Trelawney shot on board the ship — eleven of the original nineteen pirates, as Smollett had estimated, are dead.
