[1] The novel begins in Natal in the 1870s, with the introduction of twin brothers Sean and Garrick, the sons of ranch owner Waite Courtney.

Garrick meanwhile becomes a war hero after inadvertently preventing the Zulus from forcing their way into a makeshift hospital ward, earning the Victoria Cross for his efforts.

The two fail to consummate their marriage due to Garrick proving to be impotent, and when they return, Sean is revealed to have survived after escaping the ambush and subsequent pursuit with the help of Mbejane, a Zulu who turned against his people after his father was murdered by supporters of Cetewayo.

Buying land off of Candy Rautenbach, a hotel owner who Duff becomes engaged to, the pair soon establish a profitable gold mine for themselves and become millionaires.

Despite this antagonism, Sean, Duff and Hradsky work together for mutual profit, setting up a stock exchange in Johannesburg alongside the other mine owners, and eventually merging their companies into a single enterprise, Central Rand Consolidated.

During this time Sean gradually loses his moral compass, helping to drive another entrepreneur to financial ruin and suicide, and later forcing Mbejane to wear a livery.

Though affected by his grief, Sean resolves to keep living for Dirk's sake, and he heads back into the Bushveld to collect enough ivory to pay for a farm, as he and Katrina had talked about doing.

[3] Dejected he returned to work as an accountant, until he received a telegram from Ursula Williams, his agent in London enquiring as to progress on his new novel.

[5]After reading the 160,000 word manuscript Smith's agent in London, Ursula Winant, rang Charles Pick the deputy managing director of William Heinemann and convinced him to look at the novel.

After being impressed after reading the first chapter of the novel over the weekend Pick gave it to the company's sales director Tim Manderson, who agreed that it should be published.

[4] Before the court the Publication Control Board claimed that the reason it had banned the novel was because it had the, tendency to deprave or corrupt the minds of persons who are likely to be exposed to the effect or influence thereof.

The subsequent three-judge bench overturned the Publication Control Board's decision by two to one, though the chief judge commented on the book's "poor literary quality".

[9] Once again Smith's writing received a lashing with the chief justice being of the opinion that it was not "a publication for any select circle of mature literary connoisseurs" and further claimed that, Making due allowances for the trends of our time, there are passages which I consider calculated to incite lustful thoughts and to stimulate sexual desire in at least a substantial number of persons: ordinary men and women, of normal mind and reactions, including some of the younger generation, who will be the probable readers of this book.