The last decades of the 19th century: the European empires are competing to gobble up the rest of the earth. Their inborn "superiority" seems to guarantee success, and the "natives" will have to submit. But some Europeans refuse to cooperate with their own leaders and they risk their life to protect the "natives." Such a man was Baron Maklin, a famous apolitical scientist and at first only a scientist. But he learns from the "natives" and life in general, becoming a political actor, a lover, and a believer in spiritual realities taught to him by the "savages."