And the officer seemed deeply afflicted.
The captain still maintained his calm indifference, and, after the lapse of a few seconds, said—
“Parricide—hum! and what would you have called, perchance, the act of the father if the child had actually died of starvation? what if life had ebbed from sheer inanition? You look only on the right of the parent and not on that of the child, who, be it said, has a double claim—a claim that nature gives him, and one which he inherits from the measure of kindness and protection that his grandfather manifested to his immediate progenitor when he himself was the child. You say, too, that all nature revolts against the parricide—as you call it: error,—nature revolts only against injustice. All things are entitled to a certain measure of justice; and the natural contract between parent and child is based on the condition that, as the former has loved the latter, and protected its infancy, the latter, will yield obedience, honor, and respect, and gratitude to him. Where the condition be not fulfilled, the contract, by necessity, ceases, the child becomes absolved from his obligation; and if he resents more than ordinary wrongs that may have been done to him, he can assume, with all approbation of moral philosophy—nay, nature calls upon him to undertake the office of avenger, and to vindicate her law. I am no parricide!
“You need not fear that I shall prostitute the faculties with which you are pleased to say God has gifted me; and, as for my flying in the face of Heaven, in that respect you deceive yourself.
“I war not against God. On the contrary: recognise in me but the mere tool of His justice. To believe that the Almighty could thus look on, on crimes, and tie the hand of the avenger, is to suppose no just God. No—no, the only difference between your sentiments and mine are, that you imagine He reserves his rewards and punishments to be meted out in Heavens and in hells—and I, on my part, can demonstrate, and consequently must, and do believe that he uses a less cumbrous machinery, and makes law—law which he instituted and impressed on things,—the regulator of his creation, and the vindicator of itself. No: as long as I live, I shall make it the end of my existence to prosecute the unworthy author of my days, until the world shall learn by a dire deed that it is contrary to justice to give life to a sentient being, then abandon it; and that all organised creatures are endowed with sensibility to make them feel, and spirit to make them resent injuries.”
“You have sunk yourself,” replied the officer, who seemed more inclined to follow out his own opinions, than to give ear to the arguments of Appadocca, “sufficiently deep in crimes, Emmanuel, without taking any additional vows to load yourself more heavily with them. You may have suffered grievous injuries, I do not gainsay, but why should privations have led you to the vile course of robbing and thieving?”
“Robbery and thieving?”
“Yes, robbery and thieving: for how otherwise can I designate piracy?”