The story begins with Deeti, who is stuck in an unfortunate marriage. She has a daughter, Kabutri. After her husband dies, she sends off her daughter to stay with relatives. Things get more dire when Deeti is forced to consider the Sati Pratha due to unacceptable family circumstances. In a turn of events, she flees with an untouchable man.
The next character is Zachary. He is an American sailor, a mixed-raced son, who joins the Ibis to escape racism. However, the ship he is on is struck by misfortune. The evangelist opium trader, Burnham, owns the ship that is ready to get through the first voyage from Baltimore to Calcutta, which will be a misfortune. During the journey, many incidents take out the main experienced members. Zachary, helped by sailors headed by Serang Ali, becomes captain of the Ibis. The voyage takes a new route: the Islands of Mauritius.
Another character, Neel Halder, a rajah of a powerful Indian dynasty, has to pay back his debts due to investments in trading with China. He offers Mr. Burnham his estates. Mr. Burnham asks him for the zemindary Rashkani, but the Indian prince refuses because it's an ancestral family property. After the trial, the rajah is falsely accused of forgery and condemned to seven years as a prisoner on Mauritius Island. He meets Ah Fatt, a mixed-race addict, on the ship prison.
Paulette is a French orphan adopted by Mr. Burnham and his wife. To be more comfortable with Western culture, she is taught English ways, but she grew up in India and prefers her native manners. She has a best friend, Jodu, who is her nurse's son. When Zachary meets Paulette for the first time at Burnham's, they are immediately attracted to each other. Unfortunately, Mr. Burnham wants Paulette to marry his friend, Justice Kendalbushe. Paulette, disguised as a niece of one of Burnahm's employees, decides to flee to Mauritius with her friend Jodu, a lascar sailor, to stay with Zachary.
The story sees plot developments when Nob Kissin Baboo, a Vaishnavite would-be priest, comes to believe that Zachary is an avatar of Krishna. As long as the journey continues, the Ibis becomes a common shelter for all those who don't fit the rules of society and want to flee in exile. At the end of the novel, Halder and Jodu head for Singapore aboard a longboat while Paulette, Deeti, and Zachary head toward Mauritius.
