Jonathan Pride is a mild-mannered dance instructor in 1820 Boston. En route to visit relatives, Jonathan is shanghaied by a band of zany pirates and forced to work as a galley boy. When the pirate vessel arrives at the port of Las Palomas, Jonathan, clad in buccaneer's garb, makes his escape. Everyone in Las Palomas, including Governor Alcalde (Frank Morgan) and fetching senorita Serafina (Steffi Duna), assumes that Jonathan is the pirate chieftain, leading to a series of typical comic-opera complications.
A lost film. George Travelwell (Fairbanks), an American youth motoring in Morocco, discovers that the governor of El Harib (Frank Campeau) has seized a young American woman for his harem. Disguised as an inmate of the harem, George nearly wrecks the place while he rescues her. One thrilling incident follows upon the heels of another in their attempts to get away, and it ends with him setting one tribe against another, leaving them free to peacefully ride away.