harried him more than ever was Job by
Satan.

Next morning, whilst we were roasting green plantains in
the fire for breakfast, a man dressed in General Walker's
blue-shirt-and-cotton-breeches uniform came upon us suddenly
from out of the woods beyond the stream. He was evidently going
south,--but seeing our party, with startled look, he turned, and
went in the direction of San Juan. We knew him at once for a deserter,
but had no zeal to arrest him; and he had already got past us, when
some one ejaculated,--"D--- him, why don't he go right? That's not
the road to Costa Rica!" Upon this unlucky speech, the officer in
command of the detail, who, either through inattention or design,
was suffering the man to pass unquestioned, ordered him to be
followed and seized. He was a German, and either a dull, heavy
fellow, or else stupefied by his terrible misfortune; and being
unable to say a consistent word for himself, the officer sent him
off under guard to San Juan, where it was well known what General Walker
would do with him.

Some hours after this misadventure, as most of us took it, our detail
was relieved and we rode back to camp. The man who had been taken in the
act of deserting was condemned to be shot at San Juan this same evening,
in presence of the whole detachment. He was led down to the beach, and
seated in a chair at the water's edge. He bore himself carelessly, or
with an absent, almost unconscious air, like one who felt himself acting
a part in a dream. A squad of drafted riflemen was brought up in front
of him, and the word was given by a sergeant. They made their aim false
purposely, and but one shot took effect on the doomed man. He fell back
into the water, where he lay struggling, and stained the waves red with
his blood. It was a wrenching sight, too brutal far, to see the sergeant
place his gun against the poor wretch's head, and end his agony!

It seemed so abominable to every spectator there that General Walker
should thus seek to enforce Devil's service from his men, entrapped
mostly in the first place, without wages or half maintenance, and with
no claim upon them whatever, but by a contract without consideration
on the one part, on the other hard labor to the death,--that this
exhibition, which in another army were calculated to strengthen just
authority, here only aroused indignation and disgust. This very night,
after witnessing the deserter's punishment, eleven men left the company
to which he