A boatsteerer leads a mutiny after his brother has been savagely beaten by one of the ship's officers.

A local man returns to his island with his granddaughter after thirty years absence. He and his granddaughter have adopted the Catholic religion, but during his absence the islanders have become Protestants and, led by the Hawaiian missionary teacher, persecute him and his granddaughter, refusing them land and sustenance. When a trader, Macpherson, tries to help the old man his store is tabooed by the islanders and he appeals to the captain of a visiting ship for assistance.

A trader's servant runs away after his female companion mistreats her. He asks an islander to find the servant and bring her back, but is horrified by what eventuates.

A man flees with his infant daughter to an isolated island after he loses his wife in tragic circumstances.

A woman travelling on a convict ship loses her husband and child to fever. She is assisted and comforted during her husband's illness by one of the convicts. In gratitude she assists him and several others to escape. When she jumps overboard shortly afterwards with her dead child in her arms they find her and take her on board their boat.

An allegedly true story of a raid by slavers on the island of Nukufetau. One of the daughters of a European man, Harry, who has lived on the island for fifteen years, manages to escape and raise the alarm. The islanders flee, but Harry's other daughter is captured.

A socially inept ship's captain incites an all-out brawl in a Samoan village.

A Maori politician fighting against the forced acquisition of his people's land is betrayed by his Labour party supporters and is defeated. After the vote he is invited to an opponent's house and, having decided to resign, accepts the invitation. While there the daughter of the man who led the troops who killed his mother and sister shows him her father's sketches of the battle.

An Islander murders a trader in an attempt to gain possession of his white wife. He is tried and condemned to death by the commander of an Australian patrol boat.

Rumours abound when a young woman leaves her abusive husband.

A lieutenant in the Marines learns of his inheritance in a fortuitous manner.

An alcoholic ship's captain seeks revenge on the man who tricked him into losing his ship and stole his fianceé.

A trader receives a lesson in hospitality from his Islander wife.

A sailor flees from his naval ship after accidentally killing a bullying petty officer and spends many years wandering the Pacific. After the tragic death of his Islander wife he joins the crew of a sandalwood ship, but eventually seeks refuge in the Caroline Islands accompanied by his young son. The king of the island values his boat-building skills and allows him to stay. He lives in isolation, but even there he is not safe.

The story of Oxley, a trader who died on Tucopia Island at the age of 87. He left a written account of his life from the time he joined the crew of a British privateer in 1805, when England was at war with Spain. Following the captain's death the ship sails into the Pacific hunting whales. As a result of the new captain's foolishness, most of the crew are massacred in Tonga.

A stockman saves the life of a man who turns out to be a French escapee from Ile Nou in New Caledonia. The stockman offers to help the man in return for a promise, which costs the Frenchman his life.

Twenty-year-old Ema and her brother, Jim, live with their trader father on Drummond's Island. Jim leaves the island to join the crew of an American ship, but runs away and returns home. Several years later an American naval party arrives to arrest him and Ema fights valiantly to save him.

Relates the idyllic seven months that Denison, the supercargo, lived in a village on the island of Kosrae, after the wreck of the blackbirder, 'Bully' Hayes's ship, the Leonora. The work appears to be largely autobiographical.

Tells the story of Jinaban, an outlaw Islander chief, who embarks on a murderous rampage when his offer of a wife to the trader, Palmer, is refused. With the help of an absconding sailor Palmer finally captures Jinaban, but the Islanders are reluctant to execute him.