The story of Frank Leigh, a man of Bohemian and wandering spirit, who has landed in New Zealand and fallen in with Hapo Tuki (called Floxy), the son of an Irish father and Maori mother. Accompanied by Floxy, Leigh decides to visit the capital of the Waikato Maori people, following the Waikato River deep into New Zealand.
Follows the character of Knatchbull, the son of an ancient family, from his first encounter with a phrenologist at his school to his final end on the gallows for a brutal murder.
