[00:00.54]Chapter 19.
[00:03.38]Jim Hawkins takes up the story again.
[00:06.80]Holding the stockade.
[00:12.63]As soon as Ben Gunn saw the flag flying over the stockade, he caught my arm.
[00:19.12]There's your friends, sure enough, he said.
[00:23.79]Just as likely it's Silver and his mutineers, I replied.
[00:28.87]No.
[00:29.93]Silver would fly the Jolly Roger, he cried.
[00:34.71]Them's your friends.
[00:37.39]There's been a fight, and I reckon they got the better of it.
[00:42.78]Now they're in the old stockade that Flint built years ago.
[00:48.56]Then we must go and join them, I said.
[00:51.33]Hold mate, said Ben.
[00:57.43]Ben is smart.
[00:59.99]I'm not going in there, not till I see your fine gentleman, and has his word of honor.
[01:08.46]You tell him, Ben Gunn has reasons of his own.
[01:14.13]And when you want me, you'll know where to find me.
[01:18.53]He's to come alone, mind.
[01:24.62]I nodded.
[01:26.55]I understand.
[01:29.11]You want to speak with the squire, and you can be found where I met you today.
[01:34.98]Is that all?
[01:36.94]That's it, he said, still holding on to me.
[01:41.64]I reckon you can go, Jim, but don't forget, reasons of his own, says you.
[01:52.22]He was interrupted by a loud crack, and a cannonball came tearing through the trees a hundred yards away from where we stood.
[02:01.31]Both of us ran off in different directions.
[02:07.84]For the next hour, balls kept crashing through the woods, and I dared not go near the stockade.
[02:16.26]At last, after sunset, I crept along the shore keeping to the trees.
[02:22.57]I could see the Hispaniola a little way out.
[02:26.62]Sure enough, the pirate skull and crossbones now flew from her mast.
[02:34.51]Along the beach, a fire glowed among the trees.
[02:40.23]Boats were going back and forth from the ship, and the pirate's loud shouts suggested they were drunk.
[02:50.49]I started to make a wide circle back towards the stockade.
[02:57.08]On my way, I passed a white rock, high above some bushes.
[03:04.82]I guessed this was the place Ben Gunn had mentioned.
[03:10.47]Now I knew where to find a boat if I needed one in the future.
[03:17.69]Keeping to the woods, I came up behind the stockade and was warmly welcomed by my old friends.
[03:25.95]I soon told them all about my strange meeting with Ben Gunn.
[03:34.60]The log house was built on top of a hill, roughly made out of pine trunks.
[03:42.49]A spring bubbled up inside and served as a well.
[03:47.84]Our chimney was a square hole cut in the roof.
[03:52.89]Little smoke from the fire went out that way, so we were always coughing and rubbing our eyes.
[04:01.02]All in all, it was a gloomy place.
[04:06.79]Captain Smollett kept our spirits up by giving us jobs to do.
[04:15.12]Two of us were sent to collect firewood, while two more dug a grave for poor Tom Redruth.
[04:24.62]The doctor was appointed cook, while I was on century duty at the door.
[04:35.11]Later, Dr. Livesey came out to speak to me.
[04:42.05]This man, Ben Gunn.
[04:45.66]What do you make of him, Jim?
[04:50.61]I don't know, sir.
[04:52.95]After three years on this island, I think he may be a little mad.
[05:03.65]After supper, we discussed our situation.
[05:09.57]Things looked bleak.
[05:13.23]Our food supplies were so low that we'd be starved into surrender before help ever reached us.
[05:22.65]Our only chance was to pick off as many of the pirates as we could until they either surrendered or ran off with the Hispaniola.
[05:35.31]Besides that, the doctor felt sure the pirates would be down with a fever within a week.
[05:44.64]After all the adventures of the day, I was dead tired and slept like a log.
[05:53.63]I was woken in the morning by the sound of voices.
[05:59.99]A flag of truce, someone cried, and it's silver himself.