Chapter 15: The Man of the Island
Jim’s flight is abruptly interrupted when he spots a hunched, lurking figure darting from tree to tree in front of him. Mistaking it for an animal at first, he begins to wonder if he’d have better odds turning around and running back to the pirates than facing whatever this thing is.
But as he watches it, he realizes that it’s actually a human. This still doesn’t reassure him right away, since he’s heard stories of cannibals before; but then he realizes, “Wait, if it’s human, then I don’t have anything to worry about… because I have a gun!”
HOLD ON A SECOND. Jim has a gun??? When did Jim get a gun?! And more to the point: you couldn’t remember you had it when you watched Long John Silver gut a guy five minutes ago? Christ, he didn’t even know you were there; you could easily have shot him dead on the spot and solved this whole mess! You think any of the other pirates are going to fuck with “Mad” Jim Hawkins after he straight-up ices their boss???
Sheesh, kids man, you can’t trust a 14-year-old to do anything right.
Jim finds that the figure is a haggard, wild-looking man who introduces himself as Ben Gunn. We soon learn that he was part of Captain Flint’s crew when the treasure was buried, then later led his own team here to dig it back up. After many, many days spent failing to uncover it, though, the others got pissed and departed, leaving Ben marooned on this island the past three years.
It is at this point that Skep begins to wonder if he shouldn’t have chosen something other than Disney’s Treasure Planet as his jokey analog for this book, given that in the movie Ben is only introduced about 15 minutes from the end, where as here we haven’t even hit the halfway mark. He probably should have picked Muppet Treasure Island instead, except A) photoshopping fake googly eyes onto Muppets is even more redundant then photoshopping them onto cartoon characters, and B) he hasn’t actually seen it.
(Maybe once when I was young enough to not remember it.)
(The googly eyes actually make him seem less crazy here somehow.)
Ben, for his part, is understandably ecstatic to be able to “speak to a Christian” for the first time in three years and dreams of eating a “Christian diet”. His particular craving seems to be cheese, which is fair; if I’d spent three years living off of goats and oysters and grass, cheese might be the first thing I’d want too (not counting hamburgers, which haven’t been invented yet). I could interpret a lot of this “newfound piety” as being little more than a means of ingratiating himself with his saviors, especially since he’s been upfront about having worked with Flint in the past. On the other hand, I like to imagine that some friendly Ottoman explorers chanced by the island about ten months ago, but Ben was so hung up on his prejudices that he awkwardly declined a ride home with them, pretending to be quite comfortable here, actually.
Though Jim has a bit of difficulty understanding Ben’s manner of speaking (which has basically been Skep’s problem this entire book), he should, at least, return the castaway to the ship—and maybe put in a good word with Trelawney, given that Ben seems to be scared enough of Silver to take their side, and they’ll need as many deckhands as possible to make it home, anyhow. Ben even says he can provide Jim with a boat in order to slip around the pirates.
As they make plans, though, they’re interrupted by the great boom of a cannon firing, followed later by a volley of gunfire. Jim guesses that the fighting has started, and the two of them begin to race back to the shore.