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TREASURE ISLAND: A Novel (Summarized By
SimoTheFinlandized / Paul Palazzolo - 2022 CE)
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In the mid-18th century CE, an old sailor
who identifies himself as "The Captain"
starts to lodge at the rural Admiral Benbow
Inn on England's Bristol Channel. He tells
the innkeeper's son, Jim Hawkins, to keep
a lookout for "a one-legged seafaring man".
A former shipmate named Black Dog
confronts The Captain about a chart. They
get into a violent fight, causing Black Dog
to flee. The Captain, proper name Billy
Bones, suffers a stroke. That night, Jim's
father dies suddenly. A few days later, a
blind beggar named Pew visits the inn,
delivering a summons to Bones called
"the black spot". Shortly thereafter, Bones
suffers another stroke and dies. Pew and
his accomplices attack the inn, but are
routed by excise officers, and Pew is
trampled to death. Jim and his mother
escape with a mysterious packet from Bones'
sea chest, which is found to contain a map
of the island on which the infamous pirate
Captain Flint hid his treasure. Jim shows the
map to the local physician Dr. Livesey and the
squire John Trelawney, and they decide to
make an expedition to the island, with Jim
serving as a cabin boy.
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They set sail on Trelawney's schooner, the
Hispaniola, under Captain Smollett and
Jim forms a strong bond with the ship's
one-legged cook, Long John Silver. The crew
suffers tragedy when first mate Mr. Arrow, a
drunkard, is washed overboard during a storm.
While hidden in an apple-barrel, Jim overhears
a conversation among the Hispaniola's crew
which reveals that many of them are pirates
who had served on Captain Flint's ship, the
Walrus, with Silver leading them. They plan
to mutiny after the salvage of the treasure,
and to murder the captain and the few
remaining loyal crew.
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Arriving at the island, Jim joins the shore
party and they begin to explore. He meets
a marooned pirate named Ben Gunn, who is
also a former member of Flint's crew. The
mutineers arm themselves and take the ship
while Smollett's loyal men take refuge in an
abandoned stockade on the island. After a
brief truce, the mutineers attack them, with
casualties on both sides of the battle. Jim
makes his way to the Hispaniola and cuts
the ship from its anchor, drifting it along the
ebb tide. He boards the ship and encounters
the pirate Israel Hands, who had been injured
in a drunken dispute with one of his companions.
Hands helps Jim beach the schooner in the
northern bay, then attempts to kill Jim with a
knife, but Jim shoots him dead with two pistols.
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Jim goes ashore and returns to the stockade,
where he is horrified to find only Silver and the
pirates. Silver tells Jim that when everyone
found the ship was gone, Captain Flint's party
had agreed to a truce whereby they take the
map and allow the besieged party to leave.
In the morning, Livesey arrives to treat the
wounded and sick pirates and tells Silver
to look out for trouble once he's found the
site of the treasure. After a dispute over
leadership, Silver and the others set out with
the map, taking Jim along as a hostage.
They find a skeleton with its arms oriented
toward the treasure, unnerving the party.
Scaring the crew, Ben Gunn shouts Captain
Flint's last words from the forest, making the
pirates believe that Flint's ghost is haunting the
island. They eventually find the treasure cache,
but it is empty. The pirates prepare to kill Silver
and Jim, but they are ambushed by the officers
along with Gunn. Livesey explains that Gunn had
already found the treasure and taken it to his
cave long ago. The expedition members load a
portion of the treasure onto the Hispaniola and
depart the island, with Silver as a prisoner. At
their first port, in Spanish America, Silver steals
a bag of money and escapes. The rest of them
sail back to Bristol and divide up the treasure.
Still, Jim says that there is more left on the island,
but he will not undertake another voyage to claim it.
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