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On 17 March 1807, Simão António Botelho left the Relação prison and boarded at the Ribeira quay with seventy-five fellow convicts. At the request of Judge Mourão Mosqueira and by order of the head of the judiciary, Simão alone was not tied by the arm to another convict. He went down from the prison to the ship beside a bailiff, followed by Mariana, who watched over the luggage cases. A loyal friend of Dona Rita Preciosa, Mourão went aboard and asked the captain to favour Simão by allowing him on the upper deck and at his table. He then drew the young man aside and gave him a packet of gold coins sent by his mother. Simão took the money but, in Mourão's presence, asked the captain to distribute it among his fellow exiles.
‘Have you gone mad, Simão?’ the judge asked. ‘I suffer from the madness of dignity: for love of it I have ruined myself, and I want to see to what extremity of misfortune it can lead those who love it.’ ‘Charity humiliates me unless it springs from the heart rather than duty; I do not know the person who sent me this money.’ ‘It was your mother,’ Mourão replied. ‘I have no mother; will Your Excellency return this rejected alms to her?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Then, Captain, do as I asked, or I shall throw the gold into the river.’ The captain accepted the money, and Mourão left the ship, astonished by the young man's dark disposition.
‘Where is Monchique?’ Simão asked Mariana. ‘It is over there, Senhor Simão,’ she replied, pointing to the monastery overlooking the bank of the Douro at Miragaia. Simão folded his arms and made out a figure through the grilles of the lookout. It was Teresa: the previous day she had received Simão's farewell and replied by sending him a braid of her hair.
At nightfall, Teresa had asked for the sacraments and received Communion at the choir grille, supported by her maid. She had spent part of the night seated beside her aunt's shrine, while her aunt remained at prayer until morning. At times, she asked to be taken to the window overlooking the sea, without feeling the chill of the breeze there. She had spoken serenely with the nuns and said farewell to each of them, still walking unaided to kiss the bedridden ladies in their cells. The nuns tried to revive her; Teresa merely smiled at the pious devices by which those good souls pretended hope for their own sake.
At daybreak, she read Simão's letters one by one. Those written on the banks of the Mondego moved her and brought copious tears to her eyes. They were hymns to anticipated happiness, all that the human heart produces at its most beautiful when the poetry of passion gives colour to thought and nature lends it lustre. The impetuous joy of those days, their sweet sorrows and the hopes that dispelled longing then came alive again. She remembered the silent exchanges with Simão's beloved sister, the fragrant sky opening to vague desires and, in short, everything that returns to the memory of the unhappy. She gathered the letters and tied them with silk ribbons taken from the sprigs of withered flowers that Simão had thrown to her from his window two years before. Almost all the loose petals crumbled, and Teresa, contemplating them, murmured, ‘Like my life...’ before tearfully kissing the bare calyxes of the first flowers she had received. She entrusted the letters to Constança with an instruction that would later be carried out.
She then prayed on her knees for half an hour, with half her body leaning over a chair. Almost torn away by force, she rose, accepted a cup of broth and murmured with a smile, ‘For the journey...’ At nine in the morning, she asked Constança to accompany her to the lookout and, seated in mortal anguish, never took her eyes from the ship, its yards already raised as it awaited the convicts. When she saw the convicts, tied together in pairs, come onto the upper deck, Teresa briefly fainted: the already feeble light in her eyes went out, and her convulsed hands seemed to grasp at the fleeing brightness. It was at that moment that Simão saw her.
At the same time, a boat drew alongside the ship, carrying the beggar woman from Viseu, who called for Simão. He went to the gangway, reached out to her and received the small packet of letters. From the smoothness of the paper, he recognised that the first letter had not been written by him, but he did not open it. The order came to weigh anchor and cast off, and Simão leant against the rail with his eyes fixed on the lookout. He saw a handkerchief wave and answered the signal with his own. The ship moved down the river towards the sea and passed before the convent. Simão made out a face and arms hanging from the bars; it no longer seemed Teresa's face, but that of a corpse raised from the cloister, the bones of its face already touched by the grave. ‘Is that Teresa?’ he asked Mariana. ‘Yes, sir, it is she,’ Mariana confirmed in a stifled sob, while her heart told her that the convict's soul would soon follow the woman for whom he had ruined himself. Suddenly the handkerchief became still; Simão saw arms move violently, and Teresa and the figure of Constança, whom he had only then made out, disappeared.
The ship stopped abreast of Sobreiras: a cloud on the horizon at the river mouth and the sudden swelling of the waves led the captain to suspend the departure. Soon afterwards, a small sailing boat came from Foz with the senior pilot, who ordered the ship to anchor until further notice. Later, the departure was postponed until the following day. Simão, like an embalmed corpse with bright, motionless eyes, kept his own submerged in the inner darkness of the lookout. No sign of life appeared, and the hours passed until the last ray of sunlight faded upon the monastery grilles.
At dusk, the captain returned from shore and, with eyes clouded by tears, watched the exile gazing at the first stars above the lookout. ‘Are you looking for her in heaven?’ the sailor asked. ‘Looking for her in heaven?’ Simão repeated mechanically. ‘Yes, she must be in heaven.’ ‘Who, sir?’ ‘Teresa.’ ‘Teresa... is dead?’ ‘She died over there, at the lookout from which she was waving to you.’
Simão bent over the rail and fixed his eyes on the current; the captain seized him and held him back. ‘Courage, most unhappy man, courage; men of the sea believe in God, and heaven will open for you through that angel's prayers!’ Mariana stood one step behind Simão with her hands raised. ‘Everything is over,’ he murmured; ‘I am free to die, but I shall not kill myself, Captain: you may let go of me.’ ‘I ask you to go below to the cabin; your berth is beside mine.’ ‘Am I required to go below?’ ‘For Your Lordship there are no obligations, only requests: I ask you; I do not order you.’ ‘I shall go, and I thank you for your compassion.’ Mariana followed him with the broken, tender gaze of the Javanese follower as the poet disembarked, in the passionate image created by the singer of Camões. Simão looked at her and asked the captain, ‘And this unhappy woman?’ ‘Let her follow you,’ replied the compassionate seaman, who believed in God.
Simão withdrew to his berth, the captain sat opposite him, and Mariana remained weeping in the darkness of the cabin. ‘Speak, Senhor Simão; unburden yourself and weep,’ the captain urged. ‘I have wept already, sir.’ ‘I never imagined anguish like yours; human invention has not yet created so dreadful a picture, and I have seen terrible sights on land and at sea.’ The captain was deliberately trying to make Simão unburden himself, but Simão did not answer. He listened to Mariana's sobs and kept his eyes upon the packet of letters resting on a stool.
The captain continued, ‘When I was told in Miragaia of that lady's death, I sought out someone with connections to the convent and asked them to take me to hear a nun's account.’ ‘A nun told me the story, although there were more sobs than words.’ ‘As we were moving downriver abreast of Ouro, Teresa cried, “Simão, farewell until eternity!” and fell into a maid's arms.’ ‘The maid screamed, other women hurried to the lookout, and they carried her below half-dead, or rather already dead, for they never heard another word from her.’ ‘They then told me what she had endured for two years and nine months in that monastery, the love she bore you and the thousand deaths she suffered whenever hope died within her.’ ‘What an unhappy girl she was, and what an unhappy young man you are!’
‘Not for long...’ Simão said, as though speaking to himself or conversing with his own imagination. ‘Perhaps not for long,’ the captain continued, ‘but if friends can save you, I shall give you friends in India more faithful than those you found in Portugal.’ ‘On my word of honour, I promise to obtain permission from the Viceroy for you to reside in Goa.’ ‘I shall secure you a decent start in life and the comforts that make life in Asia healthy.’ ‘Do not fear exile, Senhor Simão; live, strive to master yourself, and you will be happy.’ ‘Please, sir, say no more, for pity's sake,’ the convict interrupted. ‘I know it is still too soon to make plans for the future; forgive the indiscretion prompted by my sympathy, but accept a friend in this tormented hour.’ ‘I accept your friendship, and I need it; Mariana, come here, if this gentleman permits it.’
Mariana entered the cabin. ‘This woman has been my providence,’ Simão explained; ‘because she came to my aid, I did not go hungry during two years and nine months in prison.’ ‘She sold everything she possessed to feed and clothe me, and now she is coming with me.’ ‘Treat her with respect, for she is as pure as truth should be upon the lips of a dying man.’ ‘If I die, Captain, I entrust her to your care as though she were my sister.’ ‘If she wishes to return to her homeland, protect her throughout the return voyage.’ He held out his hand with emotion and asked, ‘Do you promise me this, sir?’ ‘I swear it to you.’
Called to the deck, the captain left Simão with Mariana. ‘I am at peace about your future, my friend,’ Simão said. ‘I was already at peace, Senhor Simão,’ Mariana replied. For a long time they exchanged no words: Simão rested his face upon the table and pressed his throbbing temples with his hands. Mariana, standing beside him, stared at the dying light of the swaying lamp and brooded, like Simão, upon death. And the north-easterly wind whistled through the ship's tops like a moan.