Fatigue and exhaustion, more powerful than pain, soon produced their
effects upon me, and I fell asleep; but it was no refreshing slumber which
visited my heavy eyelids; the, slow fever of suffering had been hour by
hour increasing, and my dreams presented nothing but scenes of agony and
torture. Now I thought that, unhorsed and wounded, I was trampled beneath
the clanging hoofs of charging cavalry; now I felt the sharp steel piercing
my flesh, and heard the loud cry of a victorious enemy; then, methought, I
was stretched upon a litter, covered by gore and mangled by a grape-shot.
I thought I saw my brother officers approach and look sadly upon me, while
one, whose face I could not remember, muttered: "I should not have known
him." The dreadful hospital of Talavera, and all its scenes of agony, came
up before me, and I thought that I lay waiting my turn for amputation. This
last impression, more horrible to me than all the rest, made me spring from
my couch, and I awoke. The cold drops of perspiration stood upon my brow,
my mouth was parched and open, and my temples throbbed so that I could
count their beatings; for some seconds I could not throw off the frightful
illusion I labored under, and it was only by degrees I recovered
consciousness and remembered where I was. Before me, and on one side of the
bright wood-fire, sat Mike, who, apparently deep in thought, gazed fixedly
at the blaze. The start I gave on awaking had not attracted his attention,
and I could see, as the flickering glare fell upon his features, that he
was pale and ghastly, while his eyes were riveted upon the fire; his lips
moved rapidly, as if in prayer, and his locked hands were pressed
firmly upon his bosom; his voice, at first inaudible, I could gradually
distinguish, and at length heard the following muttered sentences:--

"Oh, mother of mercy! So far from his home and his people, and so young to
die in a strange land--There it is again." Here he appeared listening
to some sounds from without. "Oh, wirra, wirra, I know it well!--the
winding-sheet, the winding-sheet! There it is; my own eyes saw it!"