“Gentlemen,” he cried, “often in my life I have been prejudiced, and often I have been deceived, and I think that it is time now that I acted for myself. From the first, the burden of this expedition has been carried by the Foreign Legion. I know that; you, who fought the battles, certainly know it. We invaded Honduras with a purpose. We came to obtain for the peons the debt that is due them and to give them liberty and free government. And whether our allies run away or betray us, that purpose is still the same.” He paused as though for the first time it had occurred to him that the motives of the others might not be as his own. “Am I right?” he asked, eagerly. “Are you willing to carry out that purpose?” he demanded. “Are you ready to follow me now, to-night--not to the coast”--he shouted--“but to the Capital--to the top of Pecachua?” Old man Webster jumped in front of us, and shot his arm into the air as though it held a standard. “We’ll follow you to hell and back again,” he cried. I would not have believed that so few men could have made so much noise. We yelled and cheered so wildly that we woke the camp. We could hear the men running down the road, and the sentries calling upon them to halt. The whole Legion was awake and wondering. Webster beat us into silence by pounding the table with his fist. “I have lived in this country for forty years,” he cried, with his eyes fixed upon Laguerre, “and you are the first white man I have known who has not come into it, either flying from the law, or to rob and despoil it. I know this country. I know all of Central America, and it is a wonderful country. There is not a fruit nor a grain nor a plant that you cannot dig out of it with your bare fingers. It has great forests, great pasture-lands, and buried treasures of silver and iron and gold. But it is cursed with the laziest of God’s creatures, and the men who rule them are the most corrupt and the most vicious. They are the dogs in the manger among rulers. They will do nothing to help their own country; they will not permit others to help it. They are a menace and an insult to civilization, and it is time that they stepped down and out, and made way for their betters, or that they were kicked out. One strong man, if he is an honest man, can conquer and hold Central America. William Walker was such a man. I was with him when he ruled the best part of this country for two years. He governed all Nicaragua with two hundred white men, and never before or since have the pueblo known such peace and justice and prosperity as Walker gave them.” Webster threw himself across the table and pointed his hand at Laguerre. “And you, General Laguerre!” he cried, “and you? Do you see your duty? You say it calls you to-night to El Pecachua. Then if it does, it calls you farther--to the Capital! There can be no stopping half-way now, no turning back. If we follow you to-night to Pecachua, we follow you to the Palace.”