The "Treasure Ship" is not a real ship, but a model constructed by Captain Bascom during ten years of enforced solitude on a South Sea island after the wreck of the "Golden Cloud." The treasure consists of a bag of gems found under the skeleton of an earlier castaway. When rescue finally comes, Bascom stows the treasure in the hold of his model and so carries it safely to his home, where he has long been mourned as dead.