little of it; but I like actions
more--great deeds, you know. Don't you like great deeds?"

"When I see them; unfortunately, there are very few of them left
nowadays, walking about, waiting to be done."

"I don't know; let me tell you one. The other day a young girl here--not
of our society, of course--was out sailing with a party of friends in a
fishing-boat. This girl had a branch of wild-orange blossoms in her
hand; suddenly she threw it overboard, and challenged a young man who
was with her to get it again. He instantly jumped into the water; there
was a good deal of sea, they were at the mouth of the harbor and the
tide was going out; they were running before a fresh breeze, and, having
no oars with them, they could not get back to him except by several long
tacks. He could not swim very well, and the tide was strong, they
thought he certainly would be carried out; but he kept up, and at last
they saw him land, ever so far down Patricio--he was only a black dot.
He walked back, came across to Gracias in a negro's dug-out, and just as
he was, without waiting to change his clothes, he brought her the wet
flowers."

"It is the old story of the Glove. Did he throw them in her face?"

"Throw them in her face!--is that what you would have done?" said Garda,
astonished.

"Oh, I should never have jumped overboard," answered Winthrop, laughing.

During this interval, Torres, wishing to show himself a man of
conversation, after his own method, had propounded no less than three
questions to the Rev. Mr. Moore, who understood something of Spanish. He
had first requested information as to the various methods of punishment,
other than the whip, which had been in use on the plantations in the
Gracias-a-Dios neighborhood before the emancipation, and which of them
had been considered the most effective. His next inquiry, made after a
meditative silence of some minutes, was whether, in the reverend
gentleman's opinion, the guillotine was not on the whole a more
dignified instrument for the execution of justice than the noose--one
more calculated to improve the minds of the lower classes? Finally, he
wished to know whether the clergyman supposed that a person suffered
more when an arm was amputated than he did when a leg was taken off, the
arm being nearer the vital organs; and whether either of these
operations could be compared, as regarded the torture inflicted, with
that caused by a sabre wound (such as one might receive i