It was hours before nature recovered from the drain.

Gradually and slowly he awoke from his swoon.

It was some time before he realized where he was and what had happened, then gradually his recollection of the fight returned to him.
"I remember now," he murmured to himself, "I was fighting with the Swedish infantry when a shot struck me in the body, I think, for I seemed to feel a sudden pain like a red hot iron.

Who won the day, I wonder?
How bitterly cold it is! I feel as if I were freezing to death." So faint and stiff was he, partly from loss of blood, partly from being bruised from head to foot by being trampled on again and again as the ranks of the combatants swept over him, that it was some time before he was capable of making the slightest movement.

His left arm was, he found, entirely useless; it was indeed firmly frozen to the ground; but after some difficulty he succeeded in moving his right, and felt for the flask which had hung from his girdle.
So frozen and stiff were his fingers that he was unable to unbuckle the strap which fastened it; but, drawing his dagger, he at last cut through this, and removing the stopper of the flask, took a long draught of the wine with which it was filled.