urn home together, and I will remain always beside you on board
the ship, close beside you, and no one shall ever part me from you
again, no one, never more, so long as I have life!"

And in the meantime he did not observe how the silvery light of the moon
was dying away on the summits of the gigantic trees in the delicate
whiteness of the dawn.

At eight o'clock on that morning, the doctor from Tucuman, a young
Argentine, was already by the bedside of the sick woman, in company with
an assistant, endeavoring, for the last time, to persuade her to permit
herself to be operated on; and the engineer Mequinez and his wife added
their warmest persuasions to those of the former. But all was in vain.
The woman, feeling her strength exhausted, had no longer any faith in
the operation; she was perfectly certain that she should die under it,
or that she should only survive it a few hours, after having suffered in
vain pains that were more atrocious than those of which she should die
in any case. The doctor lingered to tell her once more:--

"But the operation is a safe one; your safety is certain, provided you
exercise a little courage! And your death is equally certain if you
refuse!" It was a sheer waste of words.

"No," she replied in a faint voice, "I still have courage to die; but I
no longer have any to suffer uselessly. Leave me to die in peace."

The doctor desisted in discouragement. No one said anything more. Then
the woman turned her face towards her mistress, and addressed to her her
last prayers in a dying voice.

"Dear, good signora," she said with a great effort, sobbing, "you will
send this little money and my poor effects to my family--through the
consul. I hope that they may all be alive. My heart presages well in
these, my last moments. You will do me the favor to write--that I have
always thought of them, that I have always toiled for them--for my
children--that my sole grief was not to see them once more--but that I
died courageously--with resignation--blessing them; and that I recommend
to my husband--and to my elder son--the youngest, my poor Marco--that I
bore him in my heart until the last moment--" And suddenly she became
excited, and shrieked, as she clasped her hands: "My Marco, my baby, my
baby! My life!--" But on casting her tearful eyes round her, she
perceived that her mistress was no longer there; she had been secretly
called away. She sought her master; he had disappeared. No one remained