I wore a night-shift which was not mine, being finer and oddly ruffled; and under it my naked body was as stiff as a pike pole, and bound up like a mummy. My right thigh, too, was stiffly swathed and trussed, and I thought I should stifle from the heat of the blankets. My mind was clear; I was aware of no sharp pain, no fever; but felt very weak, and could have slept again, only that perspiration drenched me and made me restless even as I dozed. Sometime afterward--the same day, I think--I awoke in some pain, and realized that I was lying on my right side and that the wound in my thigh was being dressed. The place smelled rank, like a pharmacy, and slightly sickened me. There were several people in the little room. I saw Nick kneeling beside the bed, holding a pewter basin full of steaming water, and a Continental officer with his wrist-bands tucked up, choosing forceps from a battered leather case. I could not move my body; my head seemed too heavy to lift; but I was aware of a woman standing close to where my head rested. I could see her two feet in their buckled shoes, and her petticoat of cotton stuff printed in flowers. When the surgeon had done a-packing my wound with lint, pain had left me weak and indifferent, and I lay heavily, with lids closed. Also, I had seen and heard enough to satisfy what languid curiosity I might have possessed. For I was in the gun-room at Summer House, whither, it appeared, they had taken me, despite my command to the contrary. But now I was too weary to resent it; too listless to worry; too incurious to wonder who it might be that was at any pains to care for my broken body at Summer House Point. Nick came, later, and I opened my eyes, but made no effort to speak. He seemed pleased, however, and gave me a filthy and bitter draught, which I swallowed, but which so madded me that I swore at him. Whereupon he smiled and wiped my lips and tucked in the accursed blankets that had been stifling me and which now scraped my unshaven chin. "Damnation!" I whispered, "you smother me, drown me in sweat, and feed me gall and wormwood!" And I closed my eyes to sleep; but found my mind not so inclined, and lay half dozing, conscious of the sunlight on the floor. So I was awake when he arrived again with a pot o' broth. "Can you not leave me in peace!" said I, so savagely that he laughed outright and bent over, stirring the broth and grinning down at me. Spoonful by spoonful I swallowed the broth. There was wine in it. This made me drowsy. To keep account of time, whether it were still this day or the next, or how the hours were passing, had been a matter of indifference to me. Or how the world wagged outside the golden dusk of this small room had interested me not at all. My Continental surgeon, whom they called Dr. Thatcher, came twice a day and went smartly about his business.