In Chapter 32 ("The Treasure Hunt — The Voice Among the Trees") the pirates grow more leery of their enterprise, and Silver tries to reason with them. But suddenly, they hear a ghostly voice somewhere before them, first singing the song Flint was famous for, and then crying out in Flint's last words. Even Silver is shaken, but he says he wasn't afraid of Flint in life and will not let Flint's ghost scare him now. Then he notes that the ghostly voice produced an echo among the hills, and the group decides that it was in fact more like Ben Gunn's voice than Flint's. None of them — except for the young sailor, Dick, who is coming down with fever himself — is afraid of Ben Gunn, not even of his ghost. They continue to follow the treasure map, making a few false turns, and from Silver's demeanor Jim realizes that when they do find the treasure, the man will certainly turn on him as well as on Livesey and the others. But when they get to the place where the treasure should be, they find not the seven hundred thousand pounds that ought to be there but only a big hole. Someone else has found Flint's treasure first.
Discovering that the treasure is gone (Chapter 33, "The Fall of a Chieftain"), the men are dumbstruck. Silver recovers first, hands Jim a pistol, and leads him to a position across the excavation from the other five men, who now, after their first shock is over, turn openly on Silver. George Merry begins to lead a charge against Silver and Jim, but is shot down by a musket from the nearby forest, as is the wounded man. The other three turn and run, and Silver finishes Merry off with his pistol. Then Livesey, Gray, and Ben Gunn appear, with their muskets, and the doctor leads the others, including Jim and Silver, in a chase after the three pirates to keep them from reaching the boats. But soon, realizing that they are between the still-running men and the boats, they stop to rest, and Dr. Livesey explains what has taken place. Ben Gunn had long ago found the treasure and had, little by little, removed it to his cave, as he had told the doctor on their first meeting. Thus Livesey, when he discovered the Hispaniola removed from the anchorage, had given the map and stores to the pirates, for he knew the map would now be useless and Ben Gunn had plenty of food — salted goat meat — for the squire's group. That morning, after returning to Ben Gunn's cave, he took Gunn and Gray across to the original treasure site in order to meet the pirates. The ghostly voice had been Gunn's idea.
