For my own part, I decided to go on with hesitation and regret, and I
believe, had one been ready to return, I should have borne him willing
company. I preferred even the hard service and dubious chance of General
Walker to the alternative of going amongst the Costa-Ricans, where
a cowardly populace would probably kick and spit upon us as dirty
filibusters and deserters; and should their government even keep its
promises, I had no stomach for being set ashore in the city of New York,
without money in my pocket, or home that I wished to go to. My health
had been good in Nicaragua, and, I believed, would remain good. The
motive which sent me there was still in force; and, withal, I wished to
see the filibuster game played out,--with Henningsen, or some other man
than General Walker, as military director. I believed it might even
take a turn so, and a _sans-culotte_ man be furnished at last with a
two-hundred-and-fifty-acre home in Nicaragua,--
"'Mid sandal bowers and groves of spice,
Might be a Peri's paradise";
and plantain food without sweat, and the elixir of joy called
_aguardiente!_ Nevertheless it was all left behind; and Samuel Absalom
tore the large, dirty canvas letters M.
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