Did the author of such views look at his subject through a moral single-convex lens which presented every object inverted? Was he colour-blind to right and wrong, or did he wilfully and deliberately present the side which he knew to be ignoble and the opposite of true? He was perfectly sincere. Walker was no worse, and no better, than nine-tenths of his fellow citizens in the Southern States, who honestly believed in the divine right of slave-holding, and testified to their conviction by the willing sacrifice of their blood and treasure. A wrong defeated, dead and buried, is a wrong which becomes visible to the blindest eyes. Whether we, who pass prompt sentence on it, might perceive its enormity so plainly, had the "leaded dice of war" turned up differently, is a speculation as idle as any other on the might-have-beens of history. The severe punishment inflicted on the allies at Masaya and Granada had the effect of keeping them for a time in check. A few days after those engagements, Walker received a most valuable ally in the person of General Charles Frederic Henningsen, an able officer, who had seen service and achieved distinction in many lands. CHAPTER XIII Henningsen--Early service with Zumalacarregui--Campaigning with the Prophet of the Caucasus--Joins Kossuth--Arrival in America--Omotepe--A gallant defence--Watters carries the barricades. Henningsen was born in Belgium, son of a Scandinavian officer in the British service and his wife, an Irish lady. At the age of nineteen he left his home to take service under Don Carlos, in 1834. He was assigned to duty on the staff of the sturdy old partisan, Zumalacarregui, from whose rough school of war he graduated with the rank of colonel and an honour of nobility, the only rewards left in the power of the Bourbon to bestow. In one engagement he captured single-handed three cavalrymen and their horses, and was the first man to enter Villa Real, after chasing the enemy three leagues. For this he was offered the choice of a commission as first lieutenant in the general's body guard or the cross of St. Ferdinand. He chose the cross.