It is 1805 and Ensign Richard Sharpe is on his way home from India. The voyage should be a period of rest but his ship is riven with treachery and threatened by a formidable French warship, the Revenant, which is terrorizing British shipping in the Indian Ocean. An old opponent of Sharpe's is aboard his ship, and the voyage is further disturbed by the Lady Grace Hale, apparently as unreachable as she is beautiful.