The Rescue by Joseph Conrad

Into the midst of Captain Tom Lingard's lawless affair of honor involving the throne of a Malayan prince blundered the English yacht, fatefully stranded in the midst of the conspiracy. Of the three white passengers only the owners's wife understood the situation--and Lingard. On him fell the decision--to save the whites, or to let the natives have their way with them and fulfill his debt to the Malayan prince. To Lingard this woman came as the first blinding flash of all woman could mean to man. Unguessable is the inevitable climax of this rescue.