They tell me that all next day I was delirious and lay moaning and talking incoherently. It was not the bullets that brought me to this pass, but pneumonia. Even so I am glad I was there and not at a hospital. Later a doctor who was summoned made the mistake of using too much corrosive sublimate on my wounds, and for once I knew what torture is. The mistake took all the skin off my side and back. But Madam is a natural nurse. Among her friends she was noted for her desire to care for them if they fell ill. Some one was almost always in bed at Surrey House; some friend whose eyes might be troubling her to whom the countess would read aloud or apply soothing applications; a Fianna boy, or an actress from the Abbey Theater who needed to build up her nerves. Thus I was in good hands, and besides, following my instinct, I ate nothing for the next three days, but drank quantities of water. [Illustration: PEARSE'S LAST PROCLAMATION Written under shell and shrapnel fire. (His marvelous handwriting is due to his mastery of the Gaelic script.) Headquarters, Army of the Irish Republic, General Post Office Dublin. 28th April, 1916. 9·30, a.m. The Forces of the Irish Republic, which was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 24th April, have been in possession of the central part of the Capital since 12 noon on that day. Up to yesterday afternoon, Headquarters was in touch with all the main outlying positions, and despite furious and almost continuous assaults by the British Forces all those positions were then still being held, and the Commandants in charge were confident of their ability to hold them for a long time. During the course of yesterday afternoon, and evening, the enemy succeeded in cutting our communications with our other positions in the city, and Headquarters is to-day isolated. The enemy has burnt down whole blocks of houses, apparently with the object of giving themselves a clear field for the play of Artillery and field guns against us. We have been bombarded during the evening and night by shrapnel and machine gun fire, but without material damage to our position, which is of great strength. We are busy completing arrangements for the final defence of Headquarters, and are determined to hold it while the buildings last. I desire now, lest I may not have an opportunity later, to pay homage to the gallantry of the Soldiers of Irish Freedom who have during the past four days been writing with fire and steel, the most glorious chapter in the later history of Ireland. Justice can never be done to their heroism, to their discipline, to their gay and unconquerable spirit, in the midst of peril and death. Let me, who have led them into this, speak in my own, and in my fellow-commanders' names, and in the name of Ireland present and to come, their praise, and ask those who come after them to remember them.