Where could they find a better shelter? The forest was full of dangers and domestic pigeons could scarcely live in the brushwood. What other pigeon-roost could have attracted them? If he had but followed the line of their flight ... Some had taken the direction of the fields, others had flown towards the mountains, and there was no sign of any returning. It was now quite dark. Joanna lighted a candle. Already the frogs were croaking in the marshes. A star shone in the sky. Tiburcio fixed his gaze upon it and began to pray in low tones. The silence was scarcely broken by the murmuring of the water as it ran and broke over the stones in the ravine not far away, just behind the cabin. Tiburcio sighed, arose, leaned against the jamb and lacked courage to go inside. Joanna came near the door. "And now?" "The same thing," he replied. He stepped down, called her, and together they went towards the terrace. Near the mango-tree, directly under the pigeon-house, they stopped, and the Indian, as if in fear of being heard by the child, asked softly, "Joanna, don't you know any prayers for this?" And he pointed to the deserted pigeon-roost. "Only Lina knows," she answered. "She can pronounce the proper spells?" "So they say." Tiburcio stood as if in a dream. Suddenly, in a firm voice, he announced, "I am going to her." "Now?" "Certainly!... Haven't you just said that she was a sorceress?" "I have never seen it, Tiburcio.... That's what people say." "But you?" "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.