Some stones fell rattling down the side of the hill, and I saw a figure jump behind the trunk of a pine. It looked dark and hairy. Was it a bear, a man or a monkey? Now there was danger on both sides of me: the murderers behind and this creature in front. I turned back toward the boats, but at once the figure ran in a wide circle to get in front of me. It moved from tree to tree like a deer, bent almost double, but on two legs. It was a man.
Then I remembered my pistol. My courage came back, and I walked straight toward him. He came out from behind a tree, stopped, stepped back, came forward again, and at last, to my surprise, he fell on his knees and held out his hands to me, begging.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Ben Gunn,” he answered. His voice was rough, like a rusty lock. “I’m poor Ben Gunn, I am, and I haven’t spoken to a living soul for three years.”
The sun had burned his skin dark, and he was the most ragged man I had ever seen, dressed in pieces of old sail and goat skin.
“Three years!” I cried. “Were you shipwrecked?”
“No, mate,” he said. “Marooned.”
I knew the word. It was a terrible punishment that pirates used: they left a man alone on some lonely island and sailed away.
“I’ve lived on goats since then,” he went on, “and berries, and oysters. You don’t happen to have a piece of cheese on you, do you? No? Well, many a long night I dreamed of cheese—toasted, mostly—and then I woke up, and here I was.”
“If I ever get back on board,” I said, “you shall have cheese by the pound.”
“If you ever get back on board, you say? Why, who’s going to stop you? And what do you call yourself, mate?”
“Jim.”
“Well, Jim,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper, “I’m rich.”
I felt sure that the poor man had gone mad in his loneliness. Then a dark shadow came over his face, and he gripped my hand.
“Now, Jim, tell me the truth. That isn’t Flint’s ship?”
At this I had a happy idea: perhaps I had found a friend.
“It isn’t Flint’s ship, and Flint is dead. But there are some of Flint’s men on board, worse luck for the rest of us.”
“Not a man—with one—leg?” he gasped.
“Silver?”
“Ah, Silver! That was his name.”
“He’s the cook, and the leader of the pirates too.”
“If Long John sent you,” he said, twisting my wrist, “I’m as good as dead.”
I made up my mind in a moment and told him the whole story of our voyage and the danger we were in. When I finished, he patted me on the head.
“You’re a good lad, Jim, and you’re in trouble. Well, you just trust Ben Gunn. Do you think your squire would give me, say, a thousand pounds out of money that’s as good as his own already? And a passage home?”
“I’m sure he would,” I said. “The squire’s a gentleman. And if we got rid of the others, we would need you to help us sail the ship home.”
He seemed much happier at that.
“Now I’ll tell you something,” he went on, “so much and no more. I was on Flint’s ship when he buried the treasure. He went ashore with six strong sailors, and we waited on the old Walrus nearly a week. Then one fine day Flint came back alone in a little boat. The six were all dead and buried. How he did it, nobody knew. Billy Bones was the mate, and Long John was the quartermaster, and they asked him where the treasure was. ‘You can go ashore and stay, if you like,’ he said, ‘but the ship is sailing on for more, by thunder!’
“Well, three years ago I was on another ship, and we saw this island. ‘Boys,’ I said, ‘here’s Flint’s treasure. Let’s land and find it.’ Twelve days they looked for it, and every day they were angrier with me. Then one morning they all went back on board. ‘As for you, Ben Gunn,’ they said, ‘here’s a gun and a spade. You can stay here and find Flint’s money for yourself.’
“Now you tell your squire this: for three years Ben Gunn was alone on this island, day and night. Sometimes he thought of a prayer, and sometimes of his old mother, but most of his time he was busy with something else.” Here he winked and pinched me hard. “And say this too: Ben Gunn trusts a real gentleman much more than he trusts pirates, because he was a pirate himself.”
“I don’t understand a word of that,” I said. “But how am I going to get back on board?”
“Ah, that’s the problem. Well, there’s my boat, which I made with my own two hands. I keep it under the white rock. We might try it after dark. Hey! What’s that?”
The whole island echoed with the thunder of a cannon.
“They’ve begun to fight!” I cried. “Follow me.”
I ran toward the harbor, all my fears forgotten, and the marooned man ran lightly beside me in his goat skins, talking all the time.
“Keep to the left, mate Jim! Under the trees! That’s where I killed my first goat. And there are the graves, you see? I come here and pray sometimes, when I think it might be Sunday.”
After a while the cannon shot was followed by the sound of many guns. Then, not a quarter of a mile in front of me, I saw the British flag flying above the trees.