Treasure Island

Jim opens Chapter 22 ("How My Sea Adventure Began") by describing the casualties of the recent action. Five of the pirates are dead, a sixth so badly wounded that he dies despite Dr. Livesey's efforts to save him, and Hunter — with a fractured skull and broken ribs — will die that night without regaining consciousness. Captain Smollett is not fatally injured, but his wounds will keep him inactive for weeks. In the afternoon the doctor, heavily armed, sets out alone, and Jim tells Gray that he seems to be going to find Ben Gunn. Jim, cleaning the hot, bloody blockhouse, becomes disgusted and restless. Knowing he would never be given permission to go, he arms himself with two pistols and ammunition and leaves the stockade without asking. Avoiding the anchorage and the pirates' camp, he walks until he can see the Hispaniola, with her pirates' flag raised, still lying at anchor, and one of the gigs alongside. In the gig is Silver, talking with a couple of his men on shipboard. As the sun sets, Jim looks for and finds the rock Ben Gunn has mentioned, and near it Gunn's awkward boat, homemade of goatskins stretched over a wooden frame, with a double paddle to propel it. Jim has seen Silver head for shore in the gig (see the following Analysis) and, knowing the ship and the men on it now have no boat, he makes up his mind to cut the Hispaniola adrift. After dark, in a fog that allows him to see only the pirates' campfire ashore and the dim light from the ship's cabin, Jim takes the goatskin boat to the water and sets it down.