Walker breathed more freely as the Golden Gate closed behind him, and the tug-boat _Resolute_, fading to a smoky speck on the water, loosened the last tenacious tentacle of the octopus--law. Harassed like Cortez by petty trials, he was, like him, sailing with a few chosen followers to a new destiny. He confided in the superiority of civilization over barbarism, and the certainty that he would receive his country's support the moment that success should first crown his arms: success which condones even greater faults than illegal warfare. The cost of failure he did not count. The stout-hearted hunter who enters a lion's den does not ask what will happen if nerve or steel fail him confronting his angry foe. Despite the result, there is something thrilling in the story of the fifty-six men who stole out of a harbour by night to conquer an empire--and all but succeeded! For not by armaments nor resources should such enterprises be judged, but by the deeds of the adventurers. As Prescott says, "It is not numbers that give importance to a conflict, but the consequences that depend upon it; the magnitude of the stake, and the skill and courage of the players--the more limited the means, even, the greater may be the science shown in the use of them."
They sailed down the Pacific coast--a long and stormy voyage--and, after touching at Tigre Island for a pilot, cast anchor in the port of Realejo, Nicaragua, on the 16th day of June. Old Realejo, at which the _Vesta's_ voyage ended, was the site of a once prosperous Spanish town with a good harbour and deep tide-water; but so often had the buccaneers ravaged it, that the inhabitants had abandoned it and built a new town of the same name five miles further up the river, accessible only to boats of light draught. The strangers re-embarked in several canoes, or _bongoes_, hollowed from the ceiba tree, and by four o'clock that day arrived at New Realejo. Castellon and his cabinet were at Leon, the Democratic capital, whither Walker and Major Crocker set out the next day escorted by Colonel Ramirez and Captain Doubleday of the native army. The Provisional Director warmly received his new ally, and promptly and formally accepted the immigrants into the military service of Nicaragua. They were organized as a separate corps, under the name of "La Falange Americana," or American Phalanx, and placed under the immediate command of their own officers. Commissions were issued on the 20th of June to Walker as colonel, Achilles Kewen as lieutenant-colonel, and Timothy Crocker as major. Orders were given them at once to proceed by water to Rivas, in the Meridional department, which was held by the enemy. Colonel Ramirez, with two hundred natives, was detailed to help the Falange, but only half that number answered the roll-call, when the _Vesta_ weighed anchor at Realejo, on the 23rd of June.