A dizziness assailed me scarce was I on my feet, and it is odds I had fallen back, but that she caught and steadied me.
"Mother in Heaven! You are too weak to ride," she exclaimed.

"You must not attempt it." "Nay, but I will," I answered, with more stoutness of tone than I felt of body, and notwithstanding that my knees were loosening under my weight.

"It is a faintness that will pass." If ever man willed himself to conquer weakness, that did I then, and with some measure of success--or else it was that my faintness passed of itself.

I drew away from her support, and straightening myself, I crossed to where the animals were tethered, staggering at first, but presently with a surer foot.

She followed me, watching my steps with as much apprehension as a mother may feel when her first-born makes his earliest attempts at walking, and as ready to spring to my aid did I show signs of stumbling.