The American consul, Major Roman, pleaded earnestly, but vainly, for mercy. M. Calvo would not interfere. Gaston in the hour of trial bore himself with manly fortitude, begging only, and not in vain, to be spared the indignity of dying with bound hands and bandaged eyes. The faith of his childhood returned to him, and his lifelong unrest shaped itself into perfect peace and resignation. The "old nobility," too, spoke out in his farewell letter to his brother, a curious blending of worldly pride, Christian humility, and philosophic fatalism. "It is my loyalty to my word that has dug my grave…. A mysterious chain, beginning at the cradle, leads to the tomb, and life is but a link thereof…. M. Calvo will bear witness that I died as became a gentleman…. To-morrow morning I shall have burned my last cap and fired my last cartridge…. Tell your children that Uncle Gaston died with a priest at his side, and that yet Uncle Gaston was a brave man…. If any wonder that I submit to this death, you may say that I look upon a suicide as a deserter…. I go to death a gentleman, and I die a Christian." The philosophy of this dying chevalier throws a little light upon his strange character. He died with touching and simple bravery, on August 12, 1854, at the age of thirty-six. Eleven years afterwards another and more imposing filibuster, lured to Mexico, partly by the intrigues of the same commercial house which had held the glittering bait before the eyes of poor Gaston, died with equal firmness at the hands of his executioners. Maximilian of Austria, Prim of Spain, and Napoleon of France, all played with fire, like the ill-fated Count Gaston Raoulx de Raousset-Boulbon, and all, like him, suffered.

But another and stranger being had witnessed the bootless expedition to Guaymas in 1852, and drawn his own false moral from the example before him—with what results will be told hereafter.

CHAPTER V

William Walker — Boyhood and education — Doctor, Lawyer, Journalist —  Goes to California — Personal appearance and characteristics — Departure of the Sonora Expedition — A government proclaimed — Stern discipline —  Retreat from Sonora — Bad news at San Vincente — The adventurers cross the boundary — Walker resumes the pen.

While De Boulbon, resting upon his fruitless victory of Hermosillo, awaited at San Francisco a chance to profit by the turn of the cards in Mexico, he was offered, and declined, a subordinate command in an expedition planned and conducted by the greatest of modern filibusters.

William Walker was the son of a Scotch banker who emigrated to Tennessee in 1820, marrying there a Kentucky lady named Norvell. William, their eldest son, was born in the city of Nashville, on May 8, 1824. His parents intended to give him a profession, preferably that of the ministry, and, though his taste led him otherwise, the gravity of the kirk always pervaded his manner, and theological speculations interested him through life. His boyhood was marked by a reserved and studious disposition, yet romantic and venturesome withal. His name appears in the graduating class of 1838 of the University of Nashville. The curriculum of that institution covered a wide course of study, including, besides the branches of common education, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, navigation, belles-lettres, geology, moral and mental philosophy, logic, political economy, international and constitutional law, oratory, natural theology, the classics, and many other studies. It was not the fault of his alma mater if he failed to prove as eminent in statesmanship as he was in arms. Duelling, the carrying of arms, and all wrangling were prohibited by the rules of the college. Cock-fighting was "especially forbidden." The cost of tuition and board was between two hundred and fifty and three hundred dollars a year. Altogether there is no reason to doubt that the University of Nashville, "authorized to grant all the degrees which are or may be granted by any college or university in Europe or America," was quite able to teach a young and ambitious student the elements of a sound education. The moral guidance of youth seems to have been well provided for, and a healthy desire to check extravagance in personal outlay is particularly noted in the regulations.

Having a liking for the medical profession, young Walker made a course of study at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a class-mate of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the famous Arctic explorer. He afterwards visited and studied at Edinburgh, in France, Germany, and Italy, spending two years in travel, and gaining, together with his medical education, a fair knowledge of the languages and laws of those countries.

Of his professional experience we know little, save that he practised for a time in Philadelphia and Nashville, but, finding the profession unsuited to his health, he went to New Orleans and studied law. He was admitted at the bar in that city, but did not devote himself long to his new pursuit. He obtained a place on the Crescent newspaper, and gave himself up to the fascinating business of journalism with all the ardour of a novice. That a man should have tried three professions so different as those of medicine, law, and journalism, before reaching his twenty-fifth year is not remarkable in our country. It was equally in keeping with the character of the man of 1849, that he forsook this latest fancy to join the host of restless spirits bending their steps towards California. Arriving there in 1850, he became an editor on the San Francisco Herald and took sides with the faction of which David C. Broderick was the leader. His literary style was not ill-adapted to the journalism of the day and place, and ere long Walker the advocate found occasion to defend Walker the editor upon a charge for contempt of court. The lawyer failed to save the writer from the penalty of a brief imprisonment and a fine of five hundred dollars. The same pugnacious qualities involved him in a more serious quarrel with a Philadelphian, named William Hix Graham, and appeal was taken to the court of honour. The combatants met on a sandy lot outside of the city limits. Shots were exchanged, apparently without damage to either man, and the seconds were about to give the signal for another fire, when one of them perceived a pool of blood at Walker's feet. The doughty fighter had received a wound in the foot, and, in order to gain another shot, had tried to hide it by throwing sand over the spot with his other foot. The seconds, however, decided that honour was satisfied by the flow of blood, and the duel went no further. After this Walker retired from journalism, and practised law for a time in Marysville, with success enough to satisfy the ambition of anybody who aimed at law-expounding rather than law-making.

Walker was now (in 1852) only twenty-eight years of age. Nature had not dealt lavishly with this man, whose ambition grasped at no less a prize than the conquest of an empire. His figure was slight, though shapely; he stood about five and a half feet high, and never weighed over one hundred and thirty pounds. His closely-cut, sandy hair was thin and almost whitish; his face was freckled and beardless, giving him a boyish appearance. The lower half of his visage was plain, almost commonplace, but his large, rounded forehead and keen gray eyes were strikingly fine. When his usually cold nature gave way to emotions of anger or excitement the eyes dilated and kindled with a greenish light, like those of a bird of prey; the thin, short upper lip became compressed, and the slow, quiet voice rose sharp and short. He never showed other sign of emotion; but, says one who knew him well, "those were sufficient to awe the most truculent desperado into a submission as abject as that of the maniac before his keeper." Add to these a rare frugality of speech, a morality ascetically pure, and a temperance equally patent in word and action, and we know as much of the outward man as did the thousands of men who feared and loved him and died for his sake.

Joaquin Miller in his poem, "With Walker in Nicaragua," paints the Filibuster Chief, with