Only then is the engine working on its bed-plate
brought to a standstill. The steam of the boiler, the breath of the
people, keeps up, but it is withheld from the engine until the mistake
can be rectified and the girl rescued. The law of mercy, the divine law,
now asserts itself. This law, being the law of God, is higher than the
law of man. Some of those who believe in the man-law and who stand over
the mangled body of the victim, or who sit beside her bed, bringing her
slowly back to life, affirm that the girl was careless and deserved her
fate. Others, who believe in the God-law, maintain that the engine is
run not to kill but to protect, not to maim but to educate, and that the
fault lies in the wrong application of the force, not in the
force itself.
So it was with this old man. Eleven months and ten days before this day
of his second trial (eleven months and three days when I first saw him),
a flying-belt set in motion up in his own mountain-home had caught and
crushed him. To-day he was still in the maw of the machinery, his
courage gone, his spirit broken, his heart torn.
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