He laughed savagely at the fantasy, and his protest burst into words strange on his lips.
"I shall never give you up to any other man," he said.

"I have won you by the sword, and, please God, I shall keep you against all claimants.
Twenty-two men sailed out of Liverpool on board the Andromeda, and it was given to me among the twenty-two that I should pluck you from darkness into light.

I had only seen you that day on the wharf, yet I was thinking of you constantly, little dreaming that you were within a few yards of me all the time.

I was planning some means of meeting you again when our surly-tempered skipper bade me burst in the door that kept you from me.

And that is what I have been doing ever since, Iris--breaking down barriers, smashing them, whether they were flesh and blood or nature's own obstacles, so that I might not lose you.
Give you up! Not while I live! Why, you yourself dragged me away from certain death when I was lying unconscious on the _Andromeda's_ deck.
A second time, you saved not me alone but the ten others who are left out of the twenty-two, by bringing us back to Grand-pere in the hour that our escape seemed to be assured had we put out to sea.