Grown and raised on the streets of Chicago; a ruthless, brawling beast of a man who detests all that “class” and “highbrow society” has to offer. Shanghaied and put into service upon a pirate’s vessel to kidnap an affluent business man’s daughter on the high seas. Shipwrecked with mutineering shipmates, Billy Byrne now fights to rescue the young woman from not only these pirates, but ancient samurai headhunters that inhabit this lonely island…and to find the man that truly lies inside the beast.
By : Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875 - 1950)
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Billy Byrne is a low class American born in Chicago's ghetto. He grows up a thief and a mugger. "Billy was a mucker, a hoodlum, a gangster, a thug, a tough." He is not chivalrous nor kind, and has only meager ethics - never giving evidence against a friend or leaving someone behind. He chooses a life of robbery and violence, disrespecting those who work for a living. He has a deep hatred for wealthy society.
He trains as a prizefighter but cannot stop drinking. When falsely accused of murder, he flees to San Francisco and is shanghaied aboard a ship. Enforced sobriety, brutal ship's discipline and productive work improves him. The ship's secret mission is soon enacted - the hijacking of a specific yacht to take a millionaire's daughter, Barbara Harding, for ransom. Billy Byrne brutally beats her suitor, Billy Mallory, leaving him for dead.
"He knew that she looked down upon him as an inferior being. She was of the class that addressed those in his walk of life as 'my man.'" After Barbara confronts him and calls him a coward, a change begins in Billy Byrne. He saves the life of one kidnapper, Theriere, rather than letting him be washed overboard, though he cannot fathom his own reasons. After a terrible storm, the ship is damaged and only makes it to land with Billy's help at the wheel. He rescues Barbara from the wreck and brings her ashore. Barbara is kidnapped by headhunters descended from medieval Japanese. Byrne and Theriere race to rescue her from the daimyo's hut in the middle of the village, but Theriere is fatally wounded in the escape.
Billy protects Barbara from the jungle for weeks while his own wounds heal. After realizing he's in love with her, he agrees to let her teach him how to speak properly. When he is again wounded while rescuing two of her father's ships officers from savages, she confesses her love for him also. Learning that Mallory is still alive, and being held by the headhunters along with her father, Billy sets off to free them. During their escape, Billy is severely injured. Certain he is mortally wounded, he sends Mr. Harding and Mallory to care for Barbara. However, the next day finds him clinging to life, and he slowly retraces his steps to where he left Barbara. Believing him dead, they have all left. Months later, he is picked up by a ship.
Upon returning to the States, Billy gets a job as a fighter. As he reads about his victory in the papers, he spots a small notice that Barbara's engagement to Mallory has been broken. Coincidentally, Barbara sees the news about Billy's fight, and sends for him. As he enters her father's posh home, he realizes that he can never fit in there. He explains that the gulf between them cannot be bridged, and that she and Mallory must marry.
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