- The narrator opens the story gazing out at a few tiny islands in the Pacific Ocean. The description is long and super detailed, which suggests that this dude is a keen observer. He's all alone and there's not a sound on the deck of the ship.
- When he goes back under the decks, he finds his two main officers waiting for him. Turns out that the narrator is the captain of the ship.
- The captain mentions to his first mate that he has seen a tiny ship anchored off the nearby islands. The other guy seems really surprised to hear this.
- The captain mentions that he doesn't really know the men on his ship well because he was only appointed captain recently. On top of that, he's young to be a captain and he has no clue why he got such an important promotion. He feels like a bit of an impostor.
- Meanwhile, the chief mate tries to think of an explanation for what kind of ship could possibly have any business in this part of the world. He ultimately thinks that it must be an English ship waiting for the right tides to sail away.
- At this point, the second mate decides to chime in. He knows the ship. It's called the Sephora and it's on its way back to Wales.
- The captain wants to make a good first impression, so he gives all the crew permission to go to bed without setting a night watch. His chief mate seems to find this weird, but he obeys. Again, the captain worries that he's doing everything wrong.
- While everyone is in bed, the captain heads up to the deck to perform the nighttime watch himself. He feels peaceful being on deck alone.
- During his rounds, he realizes that someone left a rope ladder hanging over the side of the boat. He goes to pull it aboard, but realizes that there's something tugging on the other end. He glances over the edge of the boat to find a naked man in the water, barely strong enough to hold onto the ladder.
- The captain asks what's the matter, and the naked swimmer simply answers that he has a cramp. The captain identifies himself as the head of the ship, and the swimmer introduces himself as Leggatt.
- Leggatt explains that he's been swimming for hours and is now deciding whether to try and board the ship or continue swimming until he drowns. Eventually, he starts climbing the ladder and the captain rushes away to get him some clothes. He comes back with pajamas and gives them to Leggatt, careful not to wake up any of his crew.
- Once he's settled and warm in his new pajamas, Leggatt says that he used to be the first mate of the Sephora, the ship anchored nearby. He isn't anymore because he killed someone onboard.
- The captain feels an immediate familiarity with Leggatt as the guy talks. He even thinks that looking at Leggatt feels like looking in the mirror.
- Leggatt explains that there was a dude on the Sephora who was always on his case and always disobeying orders. Then a few weeks ago, there was a terrible storm. Everyone was half-crazy with fear that the ship might go down, and this same troublemaker chose this opportunity to talk smack to Leggatt and disobey orders. So Leggatt got into a fight with the guy and ended up strangling him before he even knew what was going on.
- The captain sneaks Leggatt down into his private chambers and returns to the deck to let the second mate take his place as night watchman. He tells the guy to watch for wind until morning.
- The captain heads back to his chambers and chats with Leggatt, wanting to know how he came to be hanging from his boat's rope ladder.
- Leggatt says that he was placed under arrest and set to go on trial once his ship got back to Wales. But he escaped from his cabin and jumped into the sea. He got out of his clothes and left them floating in the hope that his crew would assume he'd drowned. It was hours before he saw the dim light from the captain's ship and swam toward it. He preferred dying in the ocean to getting dragged back to Britain to stand trial, especially since his father is a respected clergyman in Norfolk.
- They hush up when they hear footsteps travelling over the top of the captain's chambers. When the footsteps have passed, the captain tells Leggatt a little about himself, saying that he has only recently taken control of this ship. They both realize that officers from the Sephora will soon come looking for Leggatt.
- The next morning, a shipmate barges into the chambers and finds the captain asleep on the sofa. Luckily, the room is designed so that the shipmate can't see Leggatt from the doorway. Phew, close call.
- The shipmate comes in and tidies up, then leaves. The captain knows that he and Leggatt just got a really lucky break, and he knows that they need to figure out a way to get Leggatt off the ship before he's found out.
- Back on deck, the captain can feel the crew acting weird, so he barks out some very clear orders and bosses everyone around for a while to reestablish his authority. He can feel himself going crazy because he feels like he's in two places at once: on the deck and back in his chambers with Leggatt.
- To help take suspicion away, the captain summons his steward to come clean his room while he (the captain) takes a bath. The steward then comes in and cleans up while the captain shuts himself (and Leggatt) up in the tiny bathroom.
- Once the captain comes back into his room, someone outside his door announces that there's a boat full of men approaching their ship. The captain braces for an encounter with the men who are hunting Leggatt.