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At eleven, the captain lay down in a bunk. Mariana sat on the floor with her face resting on her knees. The painful day had left her without strength. Simão was awake in the cabin, his arms crossed. He watched the lamp swing; the wind seemed to moan.
At midnight, he picked up Teresa's letters. Her last letter lay on top. Teresa had written it while alive, expecting to be dead when Simão read it. Simão opened it and held it near the faint light.
“When you read this, poor Teresa will be at rest,” she wrote. She should have spared him that final pain. But writing comforted her: she was speaking to him one last time. For that reason, she asked his forgiveness. Simão would lose sight of the convent and travel far away. No voice would tell him that Teresa awaited him in the next world. She asked God to save him.
Perhaps Simão would rather imagine her alive, awaiting his return. But she could not live without that last hope. She was not complaining or blaming Simão. She did not want to add unfair remorse to his grief. She still wished to see him happy. But she feared that exile or grief would kill him.
She remembered the Coimbra house imagined by Simão. The house was surrounded by trees, flowers and birds. In their imagination, they walked beside the Mondego at dusk. The stars appeared, and the moon lit the water. Teresa stayed beside him and rested her face against his chest. In this way, she sought the comfort she felt beside her mother. The memory of the letters calmed her agony. Simão had also written about triumphs, glory and an immortal name. Teresa had shared those dreams and believed in the strength of her love.
“What a beautiful heaven we have fallen from!” she lamented. Simão was boarding the convict ship, while Teresa was entering the grave. They could no longer fulfil their hope of three years. Sleep was her only relief; death seemed a mercy. She asked what Simão would do without his companion in suffering. She believed that he would never love another woman.
Morning was breaking: it was the last dawn of her eighteen years. She blessed Simão and asked God to spare him a long agony. She offered God her anguish for his sins. She asked Simão to offer his suffering for her forgiveness. “Farewell; in the light of eternity, it seems to me that I already see you,” Teresa concluded.
Then Simão rose and stared at Mariana. Mariana asked him what was wrong. The captain had given her permission to stay. Simão asked her to rest, but she wished to stay near him. Then Simão asked whether he could go up on deck. The captain woke and accompanied him.
Simão added the letter to the others and staggered up to the deck. He sat on the ropes and gazed at Monchique's dark viewing gallery. The captain paced and watched Simão's movements. Mariana had warned him that Simão might kill himself. The captain wanted to comfort him but could find no words. Suddenly, Simão declared, “I shall not kill myself!” He told the captain that he could sleep without worry. The captain asked him to return to the cabin. Simão agreed, although he said that he suffered more below deck.
The captain remained on deck despite the strong gusts. Mariana crouched among the cargo near Simão. At three in the morning, Simão burnt with fever. He collapsed, and his head came to rest against Mariana's chest. He called her an angel of compassion and said that Teresa had suffered more. Then he asked, “Hold me up, my sister.”
He went down holding the ropes and looked once more at the viewing gallery. He drank water, but fever, pain, nausea and delirium followed. In the morning, the captain called a doctor to the ship. The doctor called the illness “malignant” without identifying it. He warned that Simão might die on the way to India. Mariana heard the warning and did not weep. At eleven, the ship left Porto. Seasickness made his suffering worse, and Simão could not keep the medicine down.
On the second day, Mariana spoke about the letters in the box. She asked what she should do with them if her brother died. The narrator marvels at the calmness of that question. Simão ordered her to cast every paper into the sea if he died. She must also cast away the letters beneath the pillow. After another attack, Simão asked what Mariana would do. “I shall die, Senhor Simão,” she replied. Simão lamented that he had made so many people unhappy.
The fever grew worse; the captain saw death approaching. He had seen hundreds of convicts die of fever without medicine. On the fourth day, a storm struck the ship off Cascais. The ship was driven far away and lost its course. It sailed south without knowing exactly where it was. On the sixth day, in the fog, the rudder broke off Gibraltar. Afterwards, the wind weakened and the waves calmed. The following morning brought a beautiful spring day. It was 27 March, the ninth day of the illness.
Mariana seemed to have grown old. The captain said that she looked as if she were returning from ten years in India. “My hardships? They are already over, certainly,” Mariana replied.
At nightfall, Simão suffered his final delirium. He repeated Teresa's words about the house in Coimbra. He spoke of the trees, flowers, birds and the Mondego. Then he murmured, “Your friend has died, your poor Teresa.” He recalled her final dawn and prayer for forgiveness. At last, he spoke Mariana's name.
Mariana placed her ear close to Simão's purple lips. “You will come; we shall be your brother and sister in heaven,” Simão said. He said that Mariana was the purest angel and called her his sister. The delirium passed into a sleep that announced death.
At dawn, the lamp went out. Mariana went to ask for a light and heard a groan. She returned in the dark and searched for his face. Simão's hand gripped hers and lost its strength. The captain held the lamp glass close to Simão's mouth. No mist from his breath formed on the glass. “He is dead,” the captain declared. Only then did Mariana bend down and kiss his face. It was the first kiss that she gave Simão. Then she knelt without praying or weeping.
Hours later, the captain announced the funeral. He asked Mariana to move away. Mariana gathered the letters and the other papers. She tied them in the apron stained by her tears from her day of madness. She fastened the bundle around her waist.
The body, wrapped in a sheet, was carried onto the deck. Mariana followed the body. A sailor tied a stone to the dead man's legs. There were tears in the captain's eyes. The soldiers uncovered their heads as a sign of respect. Mariana watched the sailor secure the stone.
Two men raised the body and swung it. Before the body struck the water, Mariana deliberately threw herself into the sea. Everyone saw her, but no one could hold her back. The captain ordered the boat to be lowered to save her. But Mariana was not swimming to escape death. A wave carried Simão's body to her, and she embraced it.
The captain looked towards the place of the jump. The apron had caught in the ship's ropes. The papers came loose and floated. The sailors in the boat recovered them. They were Teresa and Simão's letters.
Rita Emília, Simão's favourite sister, still lived in Vila Real de Trás-os-Montes. The last family member to die, twenty-six years earlier, had been Manoel Botelho. He was the author’s father.
The End.