: Thomas Ormsgill was kicked out of the Colonial Service, the victim of unjust accusation. Stranded in Portuguese West Africa, he accepts a helping hand from Lamartine, a trader with a murky past. With Lamartine's help, Ormsgill pulls himself back into self-respect. Lamartine dies early on in the story, and Ormsgill decides to complete Lamartine's restitution toward a black woman and some black men which the trader had wronged. Simultaneously, Ormsgill learns of a sizable inheritance waiting for him back in England, and that the girl to whom he had been engaged was still waiting for him. But four years in the wilderness has changed him, and, despite what he knows to be the danger and challenges in discharging his debt to Lamartine, he struggles to choose between what is right and what is easy.