Генри Хаггард - Heart of the World

For five years the señor and I lived here together, but I think that during all this time he was dying. He, who used to be so strong in body and merry in mind, never regained his health or spirits from that hour when Maya passed upon the pyramid, and though he seldom spoke of her, I know that night and day she was always present in his thoughts. Twice in the spring seasons he suffered from calenturas , as we call the fever of the country, which left him sallow in face and shrunken in body; and when the spring came round for the third time, I begged him to go to Mexico for change, returning to the hacienda in the summer. In vain; he would not do it, indeed I do not think that he cared whether he lived or died. So the end of it was that the calentura took him again, and die he did in my arms, happily as a child that falls asleep.

Now my days are accomplished also, and, having failed in all things and known much sorrow and disappointment, I go to join him. My friend, farewell. Perhaps you will think of me from time to time, and, though you are a heretic, send up a prayer to heaven for the welfare of the soul of the old Indian—

IGNATIO.