A fictionalised account of the adventures of two mutineers from the Dutch ship Batavia which was shipwrecked in 1869 on the coast of what would later become known as Western Australia. In the aftermath of the grounding of the ship, which carried 320 passengers and crew, the mutineers engaged in an 'orgy of rape and bloodshed,' which led to the death of at least 125 men, women and children. The subsequent interrogation and sentencing of those involved saw seven men hanged (but not before most had their hands chopped off). Two participants, an 18 year-old cabin boy, Jan Pelgrom de Bye and an older sailor named Wouter Loos, were spared execution in favour of being marooned on the mainland. Favenc's protagonists in the book are given the names Diedrich Buys and Paul. Both men were to be picked up later by passing Dutch ships but were never seen again.
In his preface to the 1896 Blackie edition, Favenc writes:
In the following romance I have endeavoured to associate the tradition of De Gonneville's visit to Australia with the historical fact of the wreck of the Batavia, and the marooning of two of the mutineers. The wreck of the Batavia is perhaps one of the most murderous tragedies that ever happened in any part of the world. One of the ruffians confessed, before being hanged, to having killed and assisted to kill, twenty-five defenceless people. '
As with later historical investigations into the fate of these men, and at least 73 other Dutch shipwreck survivors between 1629-1727, Favenc considers the question of what might have happened to them, and in particular what sort of interaction they may have had with the Aboriginal people they encountered. These questions have in later years been answered to some degree by research which demonstrates that some of the Amangu clan carry a gene which can be traced to a specific region (Leydon) in Holland.