Jim Hawkins is a young boy who lives at his parents’ sleepy sea-side inn, the Admiral Benbow, near Bristol, England, in the mid-18th century. One day, an old and menacing sea captain referred to as Billy Bones appears and takes a room at the inn. The captain paying "three or four gold pieces" in advance stays for "month after month, so that all the money had been long exhausted". One day, an equally menacing figure named Black Dog arrives at the Inn looking for Bill, and when the two pirates meet, Jim overhears them arguing in the parlour and finally the two begin fighting. Billy wounds Black Dog, but immediately afterwards falls to the ground from a stroke. Bill tells Jim that Black Dog was "a bad 'un" and "mind you, it's my sea chest they're after". He mutters incoherently to Jim about a man named Captain Flint and something he was given the day Flint died at Savannah. Jim's father soon dies, and the day after his funeral a blind pirate, Pew, appears at the inn where he presents the captain with "The Black Spot", a secret pirate message which in this case gives Bones with an ultimatum to be met by ten o'clock that night, on pain of death. The captain dies minutes later of a stroke. Hastily, Jim and his mother unlock Billy’s sea chest (to collect payment for his inn tab; Mrs. Hawkins is determined to take neither more nor less than her due), finding money and a sealed packet inside. Hearing steps outside, they quickly leave with such money as Mrs. Hawkins has managed to count, and Jim snatches the packet as a make-weight since the count is short. They hide while Billy’s pursuers ransack the inn looking for "Flint's fist", but are interrupted: Jim and his Mother had informed the local hamlet of the threat to the inn, and though none of the inhabitants dared come with them, they have sent for help. Soon four or five Revenuers arrive, and Pew is crushed beneath a horse's hooves as his accomplices flee. Most of the other pirates escape in a lugger.
Jim realizes that the contents he has snatched from the sea chest must be valuable, so he takes the packet he has found to some local gentry acquaintances, Dr. Livesey and Squire John Trelawney. They find an account book and a map which they excitedly recognize as a map leading to the fabled treasure of Captain Flint. Trelawney immediately starts planning an expedition. Naïve in his negotiations to outfit his ship, the Hispaniola, Trelawney is tricked into hiring one of Flint’s former mates, Long John Silver as a cook, as well as many of Flint’s old crew. Only the captain and 3 other seamen, Joyce, Redruth, and Hunter are trustworthy, but Trelawney has fallen under the charismatic spell of Silver and believes him to be the better man. The ship sets sail for the treasure island with nothing amiss except the seemingly-accidental loss of Mr Arrow, Smollett's first mate, until Jim overhears Silver’s plans for mutiny. Jim tells the captain about Silver and the rest of the rebellious crew. Captain Smollett is vindicated in the eyes of the others and becomes the leader of the "faithful crew".
Landing at the island, Captain Smollett devises a plan to get most of the mutineers off the ship, allowing them leisure time on shore. Without telling his companions, Jim sneaks into the pirates’ boat and goes ashore with them. Frightened of the pirates, Jim runs off alone into the forest. From a hiding place, he witnesses Silver’s murder of a sailor who refuses to join the mutiny. Jim flees deeper into the heart of the island, where he encounters a half-crazed man named Ben Gunn. Ben had once served in Flint’s crew but was marooned alone on the island three years earlier.
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2007-09-21 -
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