The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls

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It was drawing near the close of their fourth year in Apia. On November
13 his birthday had been celebrated with the usual festivities, and on
Thanksgiving Day he had given a dinner to his American friends--and then
the end of all his wanderings and working came suddenly.

"He wrote hard all that morning of the last day," says Lloyd Osbourne,
"on his half-finished book Hermiston.... In the afternoon the mail fell
to be answered; not business correspondence--but replies to the long,
kindly letters of distant friends, received but two days since, and
still bright in memory.

"At sunset he came downstairs.... He was helping his wife on the
verandah, and gaily talking, when suddenly he put both hands to his
head, and cried out, 'What's that?' Then he asked quickly, 'Do I look
strange?' Even as he did so he fell on his knees beside her. He was
helped into the great hall, between his wife and body-servant, Sosimo,
losing consciousness instantly, as he lay back in the arm-chair that had