This book is a collection of fifteen short stories. In the title tale, some travelers aboard a German mail boat are touring Mozambique. Phoebe buys a hideous statue as a curio. Dawson carries it for her, but leaves it in the hotel where they dined. When he returns to collect it, night has fallen, and Mozambique is a different place. A sudden rainstorm finds him soaked and seeking shelter in a house of criminals, with violence and romance erupting. There is the story of the honest old sea captain who loses an arm and cannot at first remember that it is not there to use. When his newly married son is taking his first ship out of port as captain and is tipsy, he supports the son with his one arm and at the vital moment saves the vessel by ringing the telegraph with the lost hand, so he believes. The stories have every variety of setting in all quarters of the globe.