Treasure Island: The Stockade

Back on the Hispaniola, the captain and his friends learned that Jim had gone ashore, and they feared they would never see him again.Dr. Livesey and Hunter rowed ashore in the little jolly-boat and found an old stockade: a log-house on a small hill, with a spring of fresh water and a tall fence all around.Just then a dying man’s cry came from the woods, and the doctor thought at once of Jim.

They made a quick plan: they would fill the jolly-boat with food, guns and powder, leave the ship, and hold the stockade.The captain called to one of the sailors: “Abraham Gray, I am leaving this ship, and I order you to follow your captain.”There was a scuffle, and out burst Gray with a cut on his cheek. “I’m with you, sir,” he said.

The little boat was badly overloaded, and a strong current kept pushing it away from the landing place.Then, to their horror, they saw the pirates on the ship loading the big gun, with Israel Hands ready to fire.The squire fired first; then the cannon boomed, the ball flew over their heads, and the boat sank in the shallow water.

They waded ashore, but half their powder and food was lost, and only two of their guns were still dry.They ran for the stockade, and they reached it just as the pirates came out of the woods.In the fighting that followed, Tom Redruth, the squire’s old servant, was shot, and he died with his master beside him.

The captain raised the British flag over the log-house, and gently laid another flag over poor Tom.All afternoon the pirates fired cannonballs at the flag, but the captain refused to take it down.Then, as night fell, a voice came from the trees: “Doctor! Squire! Captain!” It was Jim.