The captain, the squire, and the doctor talk over plans in the cabin. They think of going away to sea, but there are six mutineers onboard the ship with them, and they realize that Jim is missing as well. They can see men sitting on the shore. It is decided that the doctor and a servant will go ashore in search of information. They steer a small boat in the direction of the stockade. The men on the beach watch as they pass and discuss amongst themselves what to do. The doctor reaches the shore and goes to the stockade, a barrier made of wood “paling six feet high” (151). Within the stockade there is “a stout log house, fit to hold twoscore of people in a pinch, and loopholed for musketry on every side” (151). As the doctor thinks over plans at the stockade, he hears the cry of a man on the verge of death, the same cry Jim heard in Chapter 14.

The doctor returns to the boat. The servant and he row back to the ship. The doctor tells the captain and the squire his plans involving hiding out in the stockade. They place Redruth in the gallery of the ship “between the cabin and the forecastle, with three or four loaded muskets and a mattress for protection” (152).