It's downtime for Jim and the other crewmates of the Hispaniola and, truth be told, the young lad's getting rather bored just sitting around doing nothing. Yearning for a spot of adventure, he hits upon the bright idea of searching for Ben Gunn's coracle, which is a kind of small boat. Eventually, Jim finds what he's looking for, and sails out in the boat to the Hispaniola, which he intends to cut adrift.

Once he's level with the Hispaniola Jim gets out his knife and starts cutting at the hawser, or anchor rope. He's naturally keen to get this done as quickly as possible, but then he suddenly realizes that it would be better to take his time. For the anchor rope is so incredibly taut, that if Jim should cut it too quickly then there's a real danger that it'll snap back and kick him like a horse. Then both Jim and Ben Gunn's boat will be knocked clean out of the water.

So Jim takes the wise precaution of cutting the rope one strand at a time, until, eventually, there are only two of them left. Jim then plans to wait until the strain of the last two strands is lightened by the breeze before cutting them.