But Matthias couldn’t hear him. The gourd slipped from his fingers; his hands had lost their feeling. He felt a stiffness in his body, a difficulty in breathing and he was oh so tired. He closed his eyes, head falling forward. He was lying on the grass near the old Roman wall. Rosamund was bending over, shaking him, kissing his face. Matthias sighed, one last gasp and his soul went out to meet hers.
Later that day the great cacique Canabo sat on a promontory overlooking the sea and watched the water turn a bloody red in the rays of the setting sun. Behind him, in the shattered fortress of Natividad and in the trees beyond, his warriors feasted on the flesh of their enemies. Now and again they would look at their leader sitting so alone, and talk in wonderment about his new powers and his love for the white man who had drunk the poisoned wine and been allowed to die so quickly. The corpse of that young white man had not been desecrated. Canabo had placed it in a canoe, lit a funeral pyre and his warriors had pushed it out into the open sea. Canabo had watched the fire burn until the charred canoe, and all within it, sank quietly beneath the ocean. All the time Canabo wept. He cried for Matthias, for himself, for what might have been, and for the lost golden rose gardens of Heaven.