Shortly after returning to a rubber plantation in the west African jungle overseer Worthing chats with fellow Englishman about life on the plantation back in 1910. Langford, a naïve new assistant arrives from Britain; warned of damp rot and Tondelayo (Hedy Lamarr), a beautiful but greedy half-caste, who roams through the area bewitching lonely white men, he insists that he is incorruptible.
Within months he is drinking heavily and his rubber trees are dying – easy meat for Tondelayo. Soon they are married but some months later Mrs Langford complains that he is not giving her enough bangles and silk. Bored she slinks into the overseer’s bungalow and tries to seduce him but he coldly informs her that she is stuck with Langford ‘till death do you part’. Tondelayo begins to poison her husband but the overseer recognises the symptoms and accuses Tondelayo forcing her to drink the vial of poison. As the ‘white cargo’, the recuperating Langford, is loaded on to the supply boat the overseer greets Langford’s unsuspecting replacement, Worthing.
Jack Dawn was the makeup designer.