as in the
place, I Held the criminal. I put myself by his side. He was struck
and I am safe and sound."

"You? So that you...?"

"Yes! I held him when he wanted to escape, once he had begun his
fatal work. I saw his crime. I say: 'Let God be the only judge among
men. Let Him be the only one who has the right to take away life. Let
man never think of substituting himself for him!'"

"And, still you this time...."

"No!" interrupted Elias, foreseeing the objection that he was going to
raise. "It is not the same thing. When a man as judge condemns another
to death or destroys his future forever, he does it with impunity and
makes use of the force of other men to carry out his sentence. Yet,
after all, the sentence may be wrong and unjust. But I, in exposing the
criminal to the same danger which he had prepared for others, ran the
same risks. I did not kill him. I allowed the hand of God to kill him."

"Do you not believe in chance?"

"To believe in chance is like believing in miracles. Both theories
suppose that God does not know the future. What is a casualty? A
happening which absolutely nobody knows beforehand. What is a
miracle? A contradiction, a contortion of the laws of nature. Lack
of foresight and contradiction in the All Knowing, who directs the
machinery of the world, are two great imperfections."

"Who are you?" Ibarra asked again, with a certain dread. "Have you
studied?"

"I have had to believe in God a great deal because I have lost my
faith in men," replied the pilot, evading the question.

Ibarra thought that he understood this man; young and proscribed,
he disregarded human justice; denied the right of man to judge his
equals, he protested against power and superiority of certain classes
of men over others.

"But you must admit the necessity of human justice, however imperfect
it may be," he replied. "God, although he has ministers on the earth,
cannot, that is to say, cannot clearly give his judgment upon the
millions of contentions which are stirred up by our passions. It is
necessary, it is just, that a man should sometimes judge his fellows."

"For good, yes; for bad, no. To correct and improve, yes; but not
to destroy, for if he fails in his judgment, there is no power that
can remedy the evil that has been done. But," he added, changing his
tone, "this discussion is beyond and above me, and I am keeping you
from those who are now awaiting you. But do not forget what I have
just said: