When we reached the barrack, exhausted with fatigue and want of sleep, I threw myself on the stone floor. My mind was a chaos. The events of the preceding thirty hours were all jumbled together in my brain. Previous to that I had a good assortment of necessaries, with a hundred and fifty dollars, and some pieces of silk. I was now left with a pair of canvass trowsers, my shirt, shoes, and forage cap; but it was the fortune of war, and I soon forgot it all in a profound sleep, I do not know how long I slept, but when I awoke all my comrades had left the bomb-proof, away drinking, with the exception of one or two, who had been left as poor as myself. I had received a wound in the leg from a splinter of a shell during the action. At the time I paid little attention to it, but it had now became so inflamed and swelled that I could scarcely move it. My former excitement of mind, with the fatigue I had endured, had produced a proportionate debility, and my feelings were no way enviable. Nothing could be more lonely, desolate, and heartless, than the state in which I felt myself the remaining part of that day. CHAPTER IX. The day following, we marched to join the regiment at Isla Camp. Our comrades turned out to receive us, and our hearts thrilled with exultation at the encomiums passed on our bravery. The poor fellows flew with alacrity to procure wine to treat us; amongst the rest, my comrade Dennis was not backward. He and I had been separated when I went to the fort, and he was now overjoyed to see me. He seized my hand in the warmth of his heart, and shook it so long, and squeezed it so heartily, that I was ready to cry out with the pain. ‘Man alive, Joseph!’ exclaimed he, ‘is it yourself that’s in it? troth, I thought I’d never see you more, for, when I saw the shot and shell flying about ye like hailstones, I said to myself, “Poor comrade! it’s all over with you;” but, thank God, here you are safe and sound.’ ‘Scarcely,’ said I. ‘What’s the matter, my dear fellow, are you wounded?’ ‘Slightly, but that is not the worst of it, I have all my kit on my back.’ ‘Och, if that’s all, never fear, my boy—you’ll never want while Dennis has a shirt in his knapsack, or a cross in his pocket.’ And his were not empty professions; my heart glows with grateful feeling to this moment at the remembrance of his disinterested kindness. In my chequered journey through life I met few friends of his description. After supplying me with things to change myself, he procured a canteen of wine; and being joined by more of our comrades, who were willing to show their good will, and who had come equally well provided, we sat down in the tent, and I soon forgot all that I had suffered.