From Jim’s comments, we know that his leaving turns out to be a good thing. Why does Stevenson make each disappearance fortunate for Jim? What would that lead his audience of readers to think? Are they influenced by Jim’s boldness?
This chapter, following on the heels of the last chapter, show again how fast paced this novel is. Instead of having the characters reflect on the death or talk together on how things are going to proceed, Robert Louis Stevenson starts immediately on a new stage in the action, having Jim leave the compound and begin to get into danger again. By having him leave, however, the reader is able to glimpse the actions of the pirates and thus Stevenson is able to more effectively tell the story because the reader can realistically know at least a little of what is going on in both sides of the warring factions.
The most interesting development of character in this chapter is to see the rationalization of Jim, something that adds to the theme of Treasure Island as a novel concerning the maturing of the narrator. All the while that Jim is stealing away from the compound, about to seek out on his own and find the boat, he realizes that the course of actions that he is taking is wrong. This realization is, of course, of an adult character, thinking of the greater good of the people that he is with. He justifies his behavior, however, by telling himself that he is only a little boy and doesn't know better, even though he does. This, therefore, is a moment where Jim is both an adult and a child, stuck in the gray material half-way between the two stages of life.
