What a dreadful surprise, my dear Aza! how are our evils increased! how deplorable is our situation! our misfortunes are without remedy: I have only to let you know them, and die.

At last they permitted me to rise, and I hastily availed myself of that liberty. I ran to a small window, which I opened with all the precipitation which my curiosity inspired. What did I see? dear love of my life, I cannot find expressions to paint the excess of my astonishment and the mortal despair that seized me, when I discovered nothing around us but that terrible element, the sight of which makes me tremble.

My first glance but too well informed me what occasioned the troublesome motion of our dwelling. I am in one of those floating-houses which the Spaniards made use of to arrive at our unhappy country, and of which a very imperfect description had been given me.

Conceive, my dear Aza, what sad ideas entered my soul, with this fatal knowlege. I am certain they are bearing me from you: I breathe no more the same air, nor do I inhabit the same element. You will for ever be ignorant where I am, whether I love you, whether I exist; even the loss of my being will not appear an event considerable enough to be carried to you. Dear arbiter of my days, what value can my future life be of to you? Permit me then to render to the divinity an existence which I can no more enjoy, and which I can no longer support: My eyes will never behold you again, and they shall cease to see any other object.

In losing what I love, the world is lost to me; it is now nothing but a vast desert, which I make echo with my cries. Hear them, dear source of my tenderness, feel for me, and suffer me to die. What illusion deceives me, my dear Aza! it is not you that calls me to live, it is my fearful nature, which shuddering with horror, lends this voice, more powerful than its own, to retard a period which to us is always formidable – – but it is over, the readiest means shall deliver me from my miseries.