Nell had gone into the world to seek her fortune and this was what she had 
found. She understood more forcibly than ever the wisdom of Miss Matheson's 
remarks about the hostility of the world and the importance of belonging to a 
powerful tribe; all of Nell's intellect, her vast knowledge and skills, 
accumulated over a lifetime of intensive training, meant nothing at all when 
she was confronted with a handful of organized peasants. She could not really 
sleep in her current position but drifted in and out of consciousness, visited 
occasionally by hallucinatory waking dreams. More than once she dreamed that 
the Constable had come in his hoplite suit to rescue her; and the pain she felt 
when she returned to full consciousness and realized that her mind had been 
lying to her, was worse than any tortures others might inflict.