In a squalid Malay river village a Boston shipmaster, Alpheus Briggs, a bucko who drives his crew with his fists, is cursed by a native witch-woman, and a war with the Malay fleet follows. Fifty years later, old and devoted to his grandson Hal, Captain Briggs finds the curse has not finished with him. George Allan England wrote at speed for the story papers between his better-known catastrophe novels, and this one runs a sea yarn, a battle on the Malay coast and a New England family story together. Fifty-seven plates by Winslow Homer and Clarkson Frederick Stanfield carry the harbours, fishing fleets and dories that keep this sea story's salt air in view.
