without picturing them as gliding deeper and deeper
into the endless abyss of water.

Michael Malone's speech to the multitude on the shorn edge of the wheat
field was brief. He spoke from the scaffold on which Sancho Mendez, the
blacksmith, sat with a noose around his neck.

"This man has been fairly tried and he is being fairly punished. There
is no way to circumvent the laws of God or the laws of man on this
island, my friends. The guilty cannot escape. If we transgress the law,
we must pay in proportion to our transgression. This man is to die.
The laws of our homeland would not have demanded the life of such as
he,--but they should, my friends, they should. This island is small.
It will be easy for us to keep it clean,--and we must keep it clean.
We must not live in fear of each other. The lion and the lamb lie down
together here; the thief and the honest man walk hand in hand. Our sins
will find us out. We cannot hide them. Remember that. In this little
land of ours there is nothing to stand in the way of the soundest
principle ever laid down for man. 'Do unto others as ye would have
others do unto you.' That is the Golden Rule. All we have to do is to
observe that rule and there will be no use for the Ten Commandments,
nor the laws of Moses, nor all the laws that man has made. We don't even
have to be Christians. 'Do unto others as ye would have others do
unto you.' That, my friends, is the law of laws. It is the religion of
religions."

"Soapy" Shay, sitting before the fire in his cabin a few nights after
the executions, held forth at some length and with peculiar emphasis on
what he called an exploded theory.

"As I said before, and as I've always said,--not being a drinking man
myself,--it's all bunk about booze being responsible for all the crimes
that are committed. Now here were these two guys, Sancho and Dominic.
Look at what they did,--and they hadn't touched a drop for months. I'm
not saying that licker is a soothin' syrup for a man's morals, but what
I am saying is that if a feller has got it in him to be ornery, he'll be
ornery, drunk or sober. I was tellin' Parson Mackenzie only this morning
that him and me both have good reason for not touchin' the stuff,--for
different reasons, of course,--but I didn't see why other people
oughtn't to have it if they want it.

"With me, in my former profession, it would have been criminal to touch
the stuff. The worst crime a burglar can commit is to get drunk