Evangeline, the finest ship of her kind, built to sail anywhere in the world, sinks in a ferocious storm off the coast of Africa. A single lifeboat with fourteen people crowded into it gets away. Forty days later, a thousand miles from South America, six survivors are rescued from the sea. One of them, the captain Vincent Marlowe, is charged with murder. His only defense is that it was necessary to kill some to save the others.