Ben Gunn and Jim Hawkins

Ben Gunn and Jim Hawkins meet on the slopes of Treasure Island under circumstances that could hardly have been more alarming. Jim, fleeing the murder of Tom by Long John Silver, is cut off by a figure he cannot at first identify as human, and his terror is such that he prefers the known dangers of the pirates to this lurking nondescript. When the creature throws himself on his knees and holds out his clasped hands in supplication, Jim learns that this is Ben Gunn, a white man marooned on the island for three years, who speaks in a hoarse, awkward voice like a rusty lock and is clothed in tatters of old ship's canvas held together by brass buttons, bits of stick, and loops of tarry gaskin. The encounter is the beginning of a relationship that will prove as important to the outcome of the voyage as any battle or council of war.

Identity and Background

Ben Gunn introduces himself as "poor Ben Gunn," a man who has not spoken with a Christian in three years. He was marooned, not shipwrecked, a punishment he explains as being put ashore with a little powder and shot and left on a desolate island. He had been a sailor on a ship that sighted Treasure Island three years before the Hispaniola's arrival; when his messmates landed to search for Flint's treasure and failed to find it after twelve days, they abandoned him with a musket, a spade, and a pick-axe. Since then he has lived on goats, berries, and oysters, and his longing for Christian diet, especially cheese, has become an obsession. He tells Jim that he had a pious mother and was once a civil, pious boy who could rattle off his catechism, but that he fell into bad ways, beginning with chuck-farthen on grave-stones. His solitude has driven him to a kind of religious reformation, and he declares himself "back on piety," though he still allows himself a thimbleful of rum for luck.

The Meeting and the Promise

When Jim asks if Ben Gunn was shipwrecked, the maroon corrects him with the single word "marooned," and the boy, who has heard of this horrible punishment, feels a chill. Ben Gunn's first practical concern is food: he asks if Jim might have a piece of cheese, and Jim, moved by the man's desperate longing, promises that if he can ever get aboard again, Ben shall have cheese by the stone. This promise, small as it is, becomes a token of trust between them. Ben Gunn, in turn, is childishly pleased by the presence of a fellow creature, feeling the stuff of Jim's jacket, smoothing his hands, and looking at his boots. He is also shrewd, asking whether the squire would be likely to give him one thousand pounds out of the treasure and a passage home, and Jim assures him that the squire is the most liberal of men and that all hands were to share.

The Alliance and Its Terms

Ben Gunn reveals that he was in Flint's ship when the treasure was buried, and that he knows the island intimately. He tells Jim that he is rich, though Jim at first believes the poor fellow has gone crazy in his solitude. Ben Gunn's plan is to help Jim and his friends in exchange for a share of the treasure and a passage home, and he extracts from Jim a promise not to betray him to Silver. He gives Jim a message to deliver to the squire, a cryptic formula about "a precious sight more confidence" in a gentleman born than in gentlemen of fortune, and he tells Jim where to find him: at the white rock, from about noon observation to about six bells, and that whoever comes must have a white thing in his hand and come alone. When the cannonade begins, Ben Gunn leads Jim toward the stockade, pointing out landmarks and chattering about his first goat and the cemetery where he sometimes prayed, and he stops short when he sees the Union Jack, declaring that Silver would fly the Jolly Roger, so the colours must belong to Jim's friends.

The Relationship's Development and Its Consequences

Ben Gunn's role in the story is revealed gradually. He has found the skeleton of one of Flint's victims and rifled it, and he has discovered the treasure, dug it up, and carried it to a cave on the two-pointed hill, where it has lain for two months before the Hispaniola's arrival. When Dr. Livesey learns this secret, he uses it to outmaneuver the mutineers, giving Silver the now-useless chart and the stores, and moving the loyal party to the cave to guard the money. Ben Gunn's fear of Silver, his old quartermaster, is so great that he refuses to approach the stockade until he has the word of a born gentleman, and he is the one who, at the doctor's bidding, works upon the superstitions of the pirates by singing Flint's song and calling out "Darby M'Graw" in a voice that terrifies them. In the final confrontation at the treasure pit, Ben Gunn's ambush, along with Gray and the doctor, saves Jim and Silver from the mutineers.

Change and Ending

After the treasure is recovered, Ben Gunn receives his thousand pounds, which he spends or loses in nineteen days, and he is back begging on the twentieth. He is given a lodge to keep, exactly as he had feared on the island, and he lives on as a great favourite with the country boys and a notable singer in church on Sundays and saints' days. His relationship with Jim, which began in fear and suspicion, ends with Jim's promise fulfilled and with Ben Gunn's loyalty rewarded. Jim, for his part, has learned that even the most ragged and seemingly mad outcast can be a true friend and a decisive ally, and the bond between the boy and the maroon stands as a testament to the power of trust and mutual need in a world of treachery and greed.