"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."