In Faring town, the rough seamen John Kulrek and Lie-lip Canool are feared and admired in equal measure — hard drinkers, fighters, and braggarts. Their callousness turns to evil when Kulrek seduces and ruins Moll Farrell’s niece, a foolish young girl. When the girl’s drowned body is washed ashore, her aunt curses the two men before the townsfolk, calling on land, sea, and hell to avenge the wrong.

Months later, Canool returns alone, claiming that Kulrek deserted ship. Strange fog rolls in from the sea, and two village boys — the narrator and his friend Joe — venture into the mist. They encounter a ghostly galley rowed by skeletons, a vessel “of bygone ages.” At dawn it vanishes before the wharfs, and the tide casts up Kulrek’s corpse, a dagger in his back — Canool’s dagger. Confronted with the sight, Canool confesses the murder and the curse that brought the dead man home. Moll Farrell, her vengeance complete, spits upon the corpse and collapses as dawn breaks over the gray sea.