CHAPTER XXIII
FREEMAN EXPLAINS
The next I knew I was in bed, in a cool, darkened room, with a man seated in an easy-chair near at hand, smoking a cigarette, and reading what looked remarkably like an English newspaper.
I lay and looked at him lazily, for a few minutes. I hadn’t the least idea as to where I was, or how I came there; I didn’t feel any curiosity on the point. The blissful consciousness of cleanliness and comfort was quite sufficient for me at present. My broken arm had been set and put in rude splints while I was in the prison, by one of my fellow sufferers, I expect, and was now scientifically cased in plaster of Paris; the bullet wounds in my right arm and side were properly dressed and strapped, and felt pretty comfortable till I tried to shift my position a little, when I realized they were there.
At the slight movement the man in the chair laid down his paper and came up to the bed.
“Hello, Mr. Wynn; feel a bit more like yourself, eh?” he asked bluffly, in English.
“Why, yes, I feel just about ‘O. K.,’ thanks,” I responded, and laughed inanely. My voice sounded funny—thin and squeaky—and it jumped from one note to another. I hadn’t the least control over it. “Say, where am I, and who are you? I guess you’ve done me a good turn!”
“Humph, I suppose we have. Good Lord, think of an Englishman—you’re an American, but it’s all the same in this case—being treated like that by these Russian swine! You’re still in St. Petersburg; we’ve got to patch you up a bit before we can take you back to good old England.”