It seemed only right and just that he should have been proved
worthy of Iris ere he gained the heaven of her love. There might be
portals yet unseen, with guardian furies waiting to entrap him, and he
would brave them all for her dear sake. But his very soul rebelled
against the notion that he had become her chosen knight merely to
gratify the unholy ardor of some decrepit millionaire. 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.
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