Treasure Island

The torchlight shows that the pirates have completely overtaken the stockade. Jim doesn’t see any signs of the doctor, captain, or company. He sees six pirates total, one of whom looks gravely wounded. John Silver sits, addresses Jim, and fills a pipe to smoke. Jim sits with his back against the wall. Silver tells Jim, “you can’t go back to your own lot, for they won’t have you” (271). He suggests that Jim will have to join him instead. Jim asks Silver where his friends are. Silver tells Jim that the doctor approached “with a flag of truce. Says he, ‘Cap’n Silver, you’re sold out. Ship’s gone’” (272). Silver says he and the doctor made a deal and parted ways, and then tells Jim that the doctor and the company didn’t care what happened to him. Jim tells Silver that he overheard his plans when he first told them to Israel Hands by the apple barrel. Jim says that it was also he who cut the ship’s cable and set it loose, and also he who killed the men who were guarding it. He proposes, “if you spare me, bygones are bygones, and when you fellows are in court for piracy, I’ll save you all I can” (274).