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This picture opens up with a prologue in which pirate Jean Lafitte (Monroe Salisbury) has just hauled in some loot from a ship. He's also hauled in a girl (Ruth Clifford) and her lover (Jack Mower). She offers to willingly give herself to Lafitte if he spares her lover. He refuses and makes the man walk the plank. Angrily the girl throws a curse on Lafitte and his descendants, swearing that none of them will ever know a woman's love. Cut to the present day (or at least the late 1910s, when the film was made): artist Paul Winthrop (Mower) thinks that Joe, a pearl diver (Salisbury), has an interesting face and paints him in the garb of a pirate. This strikes a familiar chord for Joe, who not long afterwards finds Lafitte's buried treasure. Now that he's financially independent, he travels to New York to see Paul. Paul is in love with Lily Demarest (Clifford), but her parents want her to marry the wealthy Robert Spurr (Clyde Fillmore). Paul is too timid to assert himself, so Joe offers to kidnap Lily for him. But after he does the deed, he decides to keep her for himself. When he hears Lily crying for Paul, however, it strikes something in his distant memory so he finally relents and brings her to the man she loves.