Rum Cove

Rum Cove is a minor but strategically significant anchorage on Treasure Island, appearing only at the climax of the voyage. It is the nearest point of the coast to Ben Gunn's cave, where the recovered treasure was stored, and it is from here that the gold is ferried out to the Hispaniola. The cove's role is purely functional: it is the final link between the island's hidden wealth and the ship that will carry it away, and its name—evoking the pirates' preferred drink—underscores the buccaneering context of the entire enterprise.

Location and Setting

Rum Cove lies on the coast of Treasure Island, close to the two-pointed hill that contains Ben Gunn's cave. The island itself, as described in the treasure map found in Billy Bones's sea-chest, is about nine miles long and five across, shaped like a fat dragon, with two land-locked harbours and a central hill called the Spy-glass. The cove is not among the island's prominent landmarks—it is not marked on the chart with the red crosses that indicate treasure—but its proximity to the cave makes it the natural embarkation point. The surrounding waters are part of the island's intricate coastline, which includes Captain Kidd's Anchorage to the south and North Inlet to the north, the latter being where the Hispaniola is eventually beached.

Events at Rum Cove

Rum Cove enters the narrative only after the treasure has been secured. Following the ambush at the treasure pit, where the mutineers are routed and George Merry is killed, the loyal party—Dr. Livesey, Abraham Gray, Ben Gunn, and Jim Hawkins—makes its way to the gigs. The doctor demolishes one gig with a pick-axe, and the party boards the other, setting out to go round by sea for North Inlet. On the way, they pass the two-pointed hill, where the squire stands guard at the cave's mouth, and they wave and cheer. Three miles farther, just inside North Inlet, they meet the Hispaniola, which has floated free on the flood tide. They drop anchor in a fathom and a half of water, and then pull round again to Rum Cove, the nearest point for Ben Gunn's treasure-house. It is here that Gray, single-handed, returns with the gig to the Hispaniola to stand guard for the night, while the rest ascend the gentle slope to the cave.

The cove thus serves as the staging ground for the treasure's transfer. Over the following days, the gold is carried from the cave to the beach at Rum Cove and then rowed out to the ship. The work is laborious: two bars of gold, slung in a rope's end, make a good load for a grown man, and Jim is kept busy packing the minted money into bread-bags. The cove's sheltered waters make this operation possible, and its proximity to the cave minimizes the distance the treasure must be carried overland.

Significance and Aftermath

Rum Cove's significance lies in its role as the threshold between the island and the sea. It is the point where the treasure, which has cost the lives of seventeen men from the Hispaniola, is finally loaded aboard, and from which the ship departs for home. The cove is also the last place where the three surviving mutineers are seen, kneeling on a spit of sand in supplication as the ship sails away. Their desperate appeal is ignored, and one of them fires a musket shot over Silver's head, but the ship continues on its course. Rum Cove thus marks the end of the island adventure, the transition from the dark, bloody sojourn to the return to civilization. Its name, evoking the rum that fueled the pirates' excesses, serves as a final reminder of the buccaneering world that the treasure hunt has left behind.