Set against a background of revolution and profiteering of an unnamed port town, the story's unnamed narrator is hired to protect a vast sum of money shadowy investors have entrusted to him. Literally chests of silver coins, this fortune must be protected at all costs. He turns for assistance to a naive sailor, beautiful and young, who helps the narrator evacuate his money from a trading emporium overrun by violent mobs. With a hopeless fondness, the boy wants acknowledgement that lives have been destroyed for the sake of money. Unfortunately the ruthless calculus of profit and loss has an eerie appeal the narrator can't shake, and the mobs are closing in. And he again has to get his fortune out of the city he's found uneasy shelter in.