Summary
A sun-scorched tub, more barnacle than timber, drifts into a cobalt mirage where three maritime rejects—Davis, a skipper whose compass only points to shame; Herrick, a soft-souled drifter nursing a novel’s worth of regret; and Huish, a venomous jester pickled in gin—spy the pearl-walled Eden of Richard Attwater, solitary sovereign of a guano-laced atoll. They beach their failure like driftwood, expecting easy plunder; instead they find Attwater’s missionary civility stretched over volcanic wrath, his daughter Ruth a moonlit enigma tethered by coral and conscience. Greed uncorks: Davis salivates over the oyster’s pale moonlets, Huish schemes with the patience of a striking scorpion, while Herrick’s gaze lingers on Ruth’s salt-kissed silhouette until desire eclipses treachery. Discovery detonates: torches kiss the night, Huish becomes a howling comet, Attwater is felled beneath a toppling mast, and the lovers flee a pyre that hisses into surf where an octopus unfurls its tentacles like black silk. What survives is neither pearl nor ship but a brittle, phosphorescent tenderness wrested from carnage.
Synopsis
Captain Davis, Robert Herrick, and J. L. Huish--three failures on a derelict ship--visit an island on which pearl concessionaire Richard Attwater and his daughter, Ruth, are the only white inhabitants. Davis and Huish plan to steal Attwater's pearls, while Herrick falls in love with Ruth, but they all meet Attwater's wrath when he becomes aware of their intentions. Huish is consumed in flames; a mast crushes Attwater; Herrick and Ruth escape both a burning ship and an octopus attack, and find romance.
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