An alcoholic doctor runs off to Tahiti, where he finds love with a native girl.

Lloyd, a drunken, demoralized white doctor who defends a tribe of Marquesan natives against the greed of Sebastian, an unscrupulous trader, is unjustly accused of a crime and tied to the wheel of a plagued ship that is set adrift. The vessel is wrecked in a typhoon, and Lloyd is washed ashore on an island where the natives, who have never seen a white man before, revere him as a god. Sebastian's trading schooner anchors offshore, and Lloyd pleads with the natives to keep Sebastian and his men off the island; the natives do not heed his advice, however, and Lloyd is shot to death by one of Sebastian's crew. With Lloyd out of the way, Sebastian is free to set up a trading post, cheating the natives and ruining their lives with bad whiskey.