In January 1726 the British ships the Compton and the James and Mary anchored off a desolate uninhabited island in the South Atlantic for repairs. Men were sent ashore to find provisions, but instead came across a tent with a man’s skeleton lying near it. Next to the skeleton was a manuscript – a diary of the dead man’s last days as a castaway on this remote island. The diary was written in Dutch and told a horrifying tale of a man haunted by madness and despair and plagued by monstrous demons…