"I cannot prevent you," was the Doctor's reply, "but I am obliged to point out that you act on your own responsibility.

It is _pericoloso_, it is _pericolosissimo_! The terrible climate of the mountains!" However, I won his permission to leave the house, and acted upon it that same afternoon.

Shaking and palpitating, I slowly descended the stairs to the colonnade; then, with a step like that of an old, old man, tottered across the piazza, my object being to reach the chemist's shop, where I wished to pay for the drugs that I had had and for the tea.

When I entered, sweat was streaming from my forehead; I dropped into a chair, and for a minute or two could do nothing but recover nerve and breath.
Never in my life had I suffered such a wretched sense of feebleness.
The pharmacist looked at me with gravely compassionate eyes; when I told him I was the Englishman who had been ill, and that I wanted to leave to-morrow for Catanzaro, his compassion indulged itself more freely, and I could see quite well that he thought my plan of travel visionary.

True, he said, the climate of Cotrone was trying to a stranger.