César Sarati, nicknamed "Sarati the Terrible", is an unscrupulous and merciless brute who shamefully exploits the dockworkers at the port of Algiers. He rents them slums and lends them money on a weekly basis, pursuing them, to get reimbursed, even to Hudelo, the coal contractor who makes them work. So he built a huge fortune that he keeps for his pretty niece, Rose, the only being who softens his pirate heart. But Rose loves Gilbert, a newcomer to Hudelo's.