Ben Gunn’s boat—I soon discovered—was a very safe boat for a person my size. It was quite buoyant, but crooked and difficult to manage. Even Ben Gunn himself had admitted the boat was hard to handle until you got used to it. The boat turned every direction but the one I wanted to go, and most of the time I went sideways. But fortunately, as I paddled, the tide swept me along, and soon the Hispaniola loomed right in front of me, pitch black in the darkness. Slowly, I saw her spars—the poles supporting the rigging—and the hull take shape. The closer I got to the ship, the faster the current grew. Soon I was alongside the ship and next to the thick, twined rope of the anchor line. I grabbed hold.
"A few cuts with my pocketknife and the Hispaniola will float out with the tide," I said to myself. Then I noticed how tightly stretched the anchor line was. "The tension is so tight, it’s like a bowstring," I thought. "If I cut this line when the ship is pulling so hard against the anchor, my boat and I could be knocked clean out of the water. It’s too dangerous."
But then a light wind started blowing from the southwest. The wind caught the Hispaniola, and the ship shifted position just a bit. I felt the anchor line go limp in my grasp and decided to go ahead and cut the rope. I took out my pocketknife, opened it with my teeth, and cut one thick strand after another. Soon the vessel was held in place by only two strands, which had tightened up once more.
"When the rope becomes loose again," I said to myself, "I’ll cut these last strands."
While I waited for a good gust of wind, someone opened a window in the stern. Something was thrown out and it splashed in the water—an empty bottle probably.
"You stupid swab!" one man shouted. "I deserve a bigger share of the money!"
I recognized the voice of Israel Hands and deduced that he was the other pirate left on the ship with Red Cap, the name I started calling the man in the red nightcap. They were drunk and arguing.
"You’re a dog!" Red Cap shouted back. "You won’t get any more!"
The men argued and cursed at each other.
"They’ll be trying to kill each other soon," I thought. But they quieted down again and drank some more.
Meanwhile on shore, the glow of the great campfire burned warmly through the trees. Someone was singing an old sailor’s song:
"But one of her crew was still alive,
Of the ship that sailed with seventy-five."
At last another strong breeze came, and the ship shifted. I felt the rope go limp once more, and with a good, tough effort, I cut the last thick strands. The ship began to turn, spinning slowly, across the current.
I paddled furiously to avoid being flooded by the ship’s wake, but I couldn’t get out of the way of the huge, turning ship. As the ship’s hull came close to Ben Gunn’s boat, I tried to shove myself away. But the effort was useless, and just as I gave one last push against the ship, my hands came across a thin cord that was hanging over the side. Instantly I grabbed it.
"I’m saved!" I thought as the boat steadied. I stood up in the boat and pulled my body up along the side of the ship. Immediately the ship and the boat began gliding swiftly together through the water.
"Why don’t they notice the ship is moving?" I wondered.
To satisfy my curiosity, I did something crazy—I pulled myself up just enough to peek inside the window of the captain’s cabin. One glance, and I knew the reason. Israel and Red Cap were locked in deadly combat, each with a hand upon the other’s throat.
I dropped back onto the seat of Ben Gunn’s boat as the pirates at the campfire broke into another song, one that I’d heard so often:
"Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest,
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest,
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
All of a sudden, Ben Gunn’s boat quickly jerked left, zig-zagged, and seemed to change course.
"What is happening?" I said to myself as the boat’s speed strangely increased.
The Hispaniola seemed to stagger in her course too as she headed southward, her masts tossing back and forth against the blackness of the night. I glanced over my shoulder. There, right behind me, was the glow of the campfire—but it was quickly getting smaller!
"I’m being pulled away from the island!" I thought in a panic.
Bubbling higher, the water was sweeping the Hispaniola and Ben Gunn’s boat through the narrow, rocky strait between Skeleton Island and Treasure Island and out into the open sea. Suddenly the ship turned violently, and I could hear shouting and then feet pounding on the deck ladders. The two drunkards had finally stopped quarrelling and awakened to their danger.
"Lord, save me!" I prayed as I lay down flat in the bottom of my little boat. All I could think of was being crushed on the jagged rocks.
"I’m going to die!" I cried as I shut my eyes tight.
I must have lain in Ben Gunn’s boat for hours, beaten to and fro by the waves, drenched with the flying ocean spray, and expecting death at every moment. Gradually, weariness and numbness overtook me, and I fell asleep in my sea-tossed little boat. I dreamed of home and the old Admiral Benbow.