Mackintosh
The title character of the story has been in Samoa for two years. Born in Aberdeen, he had enjoyed the quiet mundane existence of a low-level government bureaucrat in London before an attack of pneumonia at age thirty-four led him to seek the position in the warmth of the Pacific islands. The two years in paradise have been a living hell, however, due to the fact that he works for a man he considered an illiterate buffoon unfit for responsibility and who with each passing day he thinks more and more seriously about removing from the living.
Walker
Where Mackintosh looks like a scarecrow, Walker is a whale. He was appointed to the position of administrator over the island by the Germans and loyally served them for two decades and then seamlessly made the transition to administrating for the British when they took over. Everything that is true about Mackinton is not true about Walker. His own life has been one of grand romantic excitement, adventure, daring, gambling, and power. Although painted by Mackintosh as the malevolent villain destroying paradise for him, Walker proves to be much more complex and complicated. His moral center is difficult to pin down with certainty and its status as a constantly moving target creates ambiguity in event which ultimate creates the climax that resolves the dramatic tension.
Manuma
The only other important character in the story is Manuma, the gangly-but-handsome native islander son of an old island chief, Tantagu. Manuma comes into divisive political conflict with Walker over his administrative wrangling of the building of a new road. This labor divide begins with Manuma’s elevation to the role of hero of the people, but ends badly. Badly enough, in fact, for Mackintosh to recognize opportunity when it knocks by ensuring that Manuma is more than simply aware that Mackintosh is in possession of a certain very accessible revolver.
