Set in the 18th century when the Barbary Corsairs raomed the seas in search of booty and slaves it tells of a young English girl, Cassia Morbilly, abducted from the coast of Cornwall on the eve of her elopement with the man she loves. Seduced and humiliated by the French sea captain who has abducted her, Cassia learns to love her captor, but he is determined to sell her to the highest bidder in the slave markets of North Africa. And so Cassia becomes a Sultans plaything a favored concubine imprisoned amid the barbaric splendors of the harem.