“Oh – no – no – Papa. That cannot – happen to – you! It must – not!”
“I agree with you,” Captain Ranson said quietly. “It must not happen, not so much for my sake, my Poppet, as for yours.”
Anona had hidden her face against him to hide her tears.
Now she looked up at him in surprise.
“For – me? What have – I to do with it?”
“Everything,” her father insisted.
He put his arms round her and held her so close that she could hardly breathe.
“Do you really think that I would leave you to face enquiries about me or allow you to be branded as the daughter of a pirate?”
Anona could not reply.
Her father, holding her tighter still, said passionately,
“I love you, my precious little daughter, I love you very much and, if I am to die, I will die as a gentleman and not at the hands of the han
