Executions, revolutions, disguises, a marriage to a mysterious, unknown veiled lady...and that's before we get shipwrecked and cast away on a deserted island! This book is pure romantic adventure. Philip Alexander Maseden, American ranchman, victim of the revenge of a newly-made head of a Latin American republic, is sentenced to be shot. Half an hour before the sentence is carried out, and for reasons not explained to him, he is asked to marry a veiled woman. Through the circumstances of this marriage he effects his escape and, disguised as a native, takes passage for the United States on the "Southern Cross." The ship is wrecked and Maseden saves the lives of the woman who is his wife and her sister, but does not know which of the two he has married. Sturgess, a young New Yorker, is also saved. These four have many adventures on a desert island finding clothes and provisions washed ashore from the wrecked ship in true Swiss Family Robinson fashion, with added Aztec treasure.