The first edition of this book is dated 1914. The edition used is dated 1914. The publisher was Blackie & Son Limited, London and Glasgow. The number of pages is 280.

General information

The hero of this story is Walter Leigh, who takes a job as second mate aboard a gasoline-powered yacht owned by a Mrs. Vansittart, whose husband is an American industrialist. Julius Vansittart is a rather nasty 12-year-old, who, despite his life being saved by Leigh, when he had fallen overboard, hates the English, and never misses an opportunity of being as unpleasant as possible, even to the point of stupidity.

There are numerous disasters in this story, with the First Mate’s death occurring soon after the start of the book, and Leigh’s promotion to the position. After that there are an attack by pirates, a shipwreck, an attack by hostile natives, all of which Leigh does his best to cope with. Eventually even the dreadful Julius becomes a bit more civilised, and apologises for his bad behaviour hitherto.

They drop a large number of floating messages asking for help, into the sea, and eventually they are rescued. This is not a very long book, taking only 8.5 hours to read as an audiobook.