This book is an adventure novel written by George Lewis Becke. It revolves around a man named Jim Martin, who was one of the most desperate and blood-stained beachcombers that had ever cursed the fair isles of the South Pacific, even though in those days there were many, notably on Pleasant Island and in the Gilbert Group. Put ashore at Nitendi from a Hobart Town whaler for mutinous conduct, he had disassociated himself forever from civilization. Perhaps the convict strain in his blood had something to do with his vicious nature, for both his father and mother had "left their country for their country's good," and his early training had been given him under the shadow of the gallows and within the swishing sound of the "cat" as it lacerated the backs of the wretched beings doomed to suffer under the awful convict system.