He says that for those who survive the first purge, it'll be hard labor, but not like any they've ever known, but the kind the Maroons have known: cruel and violent. When asked what happens after, Ben speaks up.
Flint's crew ask him what is going to happen, and he says that several of them will be tortured one by one to make sure their stories are the same.
When James Flint and his crew are captured by the escaped slave community on the Maroon Island, they are put into the same cell as Ben Gunn. A few were killed in the first purge by the Maroon Queen, and the rest through forced hard labour.
The crew had careened the ship on the windward side of the Maroon Island for cleaning and maintenance, when the Maroons captured them. Ben was one of fourteen crewmen on a slave trading ship.
