CHAPTER XXVIII.

HOW THREE SOULS FOUND THEIR HERITAGE.

In that hour I had none of the exhilaration of success. So strangely
are we mortals made that, though I had won safety for myself and my
people, I could not get the savour of it. I had passed too far beyond
the limits of my strength. Now that the tension of peril was gone, my
legs were like touchwood, which a stroke would shatter, and my foolish
head swam like a merry-go-round. Shalah's arm was round me, and he
lifted me up the steep bits till we came to the crown of the ridge.
There we halted, and he fed me with sops of bread dipped in eau-de-vie,
for he had brought Ringan's flask with him. The only result was to make
me deadly sick. I saw his eyes look gravely at me, and the next I knew
I was on his back. I begged him to set me down and leave me, and I
think I must have wept like a bairn. All pride of manhood had flown in
that sharp revulsion, and I had the mind of a lost child.

As the light grew some strength came back to me, and presently I was
able to hobble a little on my rickety shanks. We kept the very crest of
the range, and came by and by to a promontory of clear ground, the
same, I fancy, from which I had first seen the vale of the Shenandoah.
There we rested in a nook of rock, while the early sun warmed us, and
the little vapours showed, us in glimpses the green depths and the
far-shining meadows.

Shalah nudged my shoulder, and pointed to the south, where a glen