This is a ruthless story of a ship with 'three lives sailed by, men determined to win revenge, money, and power horn the sea. It is a story of intense, tropical passion, expressed both in the desire of man for woman and in the conflict of men with each other. More, it is the story of the power which hate can attain when it drives coldly toward revenge, and of how, once achieved, that power sucks in all, even those who are themselves possessed of the devil.
It is storytelling in the grand manner – no thin thread but many tough strands rolled into a richly colored whole. Sam Rosen, the trader, has come with his inscrutable partner, Ralls, ostensibly to hunt for pearls in die lagoon off the South Sea island of Little Soembawa. But there is another reason, a richer treasure that has drawn the two of them, in their aged schooner, to this part of the world.
When Mayrant Sidneye, head of the great trading firm of Batjak Ltd., reveals his interest in the schooner and its crew; when van Schreeven, also of Batjak, whose yacht with the lovely Telia on board, has anchored in the lagoon, tries to induce Sam to leave Ralls, Sam is forced to realize very clearly why they have all come to this spot. They are in the wake of The Red Witch, owned by Batjak, and sunk with a cargo of gold bullion, when Ralls was her captain. Ralls alone knows where she sank!
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