Watson, a trader, sets out in a canoe to return to his own island, Nanomaga, when the people there signal they are in trouble. He is accompanied by a man from the Ellice Island (now Tuvalu), Tassia of Onotoa. On the way Watson falls ill from poisoned gin, sold to him by a rival trader, and Tassia swims to Nanomaga to raise the alarm, but is attacked and killed by a shark just as he gets there. Some years later Watson gets revenge on his enemy.