The pirates did not come back that day. We looked after the wounded and cooked lunch, and even outside we could hear the groans of the doctor’s patients. Of the eight men who had fallen in the fight, only three were still alive: the pirate shot at the loophole, Hunter and the captain. The pirate died while the doctor was treating him, and Hunter never woke up; he died that night. The captain’s wounds were bad but not dangerous. He would get better, the doctor said, but for weeks he must not walk or move his arm, or even talk if he could help it. The cut on my fingers was nothing.
After lunch the squire and the doctor sat beside the captain and talked. Then, a little after noon, the doctor took his pistols, a cutlass and a gun, put the map in his pocket, climbed over the fence on the north side and walked quickly away through the trees.
Gray was so surprised that he took his pipe out of his mouth and forgot to put it back. “Is Dr. Livesey mad?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I think he has an idea. He’s going to see Ben Gunn.”
I was right, as I learned later. But the log house was terribly hot, and soon another idea began to grow in my head, one that was not right at all. I began to envy the doctor, walking in the cool shade of the woods, while I sat in the heat with so much blood around me and so many dead men lying near. I hated the place almost as much as I feared it.
While I washed the floor and then the dishes, this feeling grew stronger and stronger. At last, when nobody was watching, I filled both pockets of my coat with biscuits and took two pistols.
I was a fool, if you like. My plan in itself was not a bad one: to find the white rock I had seen the evening before and see whether Ben Gunn had hidden his boat there. I still believe that was worth doing. But I knew they would never let me go, so I decided to slip away in secret, and that made the whole thing wrong. But I was only a boy, and I had made up my mind.
Soon I had my chance. The squire and Gray were busy with the captain’s bandages. I climbed over the fence and disappeared into the trees, and I was far away before anyone noticed. This was my second foolish act, much worse than the first, because I left only two healthy men to guard the house. But like the first, it helped to save us all.
I went to the east coast, so that nobody on the ship could see me, and walked south along the beach beside the great white waves. Then I crept up to the top of the long strip of sand between the sea and the harbor. In front of me the Hispaniola lay in the still harbor, with the pirate flag hanging from her. Silver sat in one of the boats beside her, talking to two men on the ship. One of them wore a red cap: he was the man I had seen on top of the fence that morning. Then a terrible screaming made me jump, until I remembered Silver’s parrot, Captain Flint. Soon the boat went back to the shore, and the two men went down into the cabin.
The sun had gone down, the fog was coming in fast, and I had no time to lose. I crawled through the bushes to the white rock. Just below it, in a small green hollow, stood a small tent of goat skins, and inside it was Ben Gunn’s boat. It was homemade: a rough wooden frame covered with goat skin. It was tiny, even for me, but it was very light, and I could carry it.
Now that I had found the boat, you would think I had had enough adventures for one day. But I had a new idea, and I liked it so much that nothing could stop me, not even Captain Smollett himself. I would go out in the dark, cut the Hispaniola’s anchor rope and let her drift ashore. The pirates wanted to raise the anchor and sail away; I would stop them. And since they had left only two men on the ship, without a boat, I thought it would not be very dangerous.
I sat down to wait for the night and ate some biscuits. The fog covered the whole sky, and soon everything was black. When at last I put the boat on my shoulder and felt my way down to the shore, I could see only two lights: the great fire where the pirates lay drinking in the marsh, and a weak glow in the fog where the ship lay. The tide was going out. I walked through a long stretch of wet sand, sinking above my ankles, waded into the water and put my boat down on it.