However, an obsequious Lieutenant, Heemskirk, in the Dutch Colonial Navy also has designs on the girl, and perhaps on other things as well.

He engineers the arrest of Jasper Allen on charges of arms smuggling, takes the Bonito in tow and manages to wreck her on a reef. With their lives and plans in ruins, the girl succumbs to despair and a fatal disease.

Jasper Allen is reduced to haunting the waterfront, a hollow-eyed, vagrant shadow of his former self.

The story is told from the point of view of a friend who hears of it all in London, via letters from the far Southern Seas.

But at the tragic end of Conrad's tale there are many questions left un-asked and un-answered. What ever happened to Jasper Allen? ... To his brig, the Bonito? ... To his friend in London? ... To the Lieutenant Heemskirk?

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The story continues in these three short Novellas - Tamissa Reef, The Gaspar Straits and Lompok.