Treasure Island: The Coracle

That afternoon, Dr. Livesey put the map in his pocket, walked out of the stockade, and went off into the woods to find Ben Gunn.Jim was hot and restless in the log-house, and soon he had a plan of his own, a foolish one, as he said later.He filled his pockets with biscuits, took two pistols, and slipped over the fence while no one was watching.

Ben Gunn had told him that he had a boat of his own, hidden near a white rock, and Jim wanted to find it.At sunset he found it: a tiny, lopsided coracle made of goatskins stretched over a wooden frame.Looking at the Hispaniola, now flying the pirates’ black flag, Jim had a bold idea: he would paddle out in the dark and cut her loose.

When night fell, he carried the coracle to the water, but it was very hard to steer, and it turned round and round in every direction except the right one.At last the current carried him to the ship, and he began to cut the thick anchor rope with his knife, one strand at a time.Inside the cabin, Israel Hands and another pirate were drunk and fighting, and they did not hear a thing.

When the last strand broke, the ship began to swing slowly around, and the current pulled the little coracle along with her.Jim was so frightened that he lay down flat in the bottom of the coracle, and at last, tired out, he fell asleep.When he woke up, it was morning, and he was drifting along the island’s coast, far from his friends.

He was hungry and thirsty, and the sun burned his face, but he learned to paddle a little whenever the waves let him.Then he saw the Hispaniola sailing wildly back and forth, and he realized that no one was steering her.As the ship swept past, Jim jumped up and caught hold of her, and at that very moment the ship struck the coracle and sank it.