"I? No. And I am afraid that it is too late. You have seen your self how far gone he is! He is no longer interested in anything. I move about, I speak, I go here and there, I come back again into the room,—but it is all nothing to him. Ah! God in heaven!"
Her voice died out Suddenly she melted into tears. Tiburcio withdrew and commenced to pace slowly up and down the terrace. The white moon was rising. The fields became less obscure and, in the light, the shadows of the trees, very black, stretched across the ground.
"Patience, dear woman, patience!"
The strident crickets were chirping. The caboclo murmured, "Yes, I know ..."
Of a sudden Joanna shuddered. Quivering she turned towards the cabin, from whose wide door shone a ray of livid light; for a moment her astonished gaze lingered and then, with a bound she was gone.
Tiburcio, motionless, without understanding what his wife had just done, quietly awaited her return, when a piercing cry rang out. The caboclo rushed to the cabin and made for the room where the candle was burning. The woman, on her knees before the little bed, leaning over the child, was sobbing desperately.
"What has happened, Joanna?"
She gave a hoarse cry and threw her arms across the corpse of her son.
"Look! It's all over!"
She bent down, her face brushed a cheek that was burning; her trembling hands felt a little body that was still aflame. She touched the sunken chest, where the ribs showed through like laths, and the hollow abdomen.