He Immediately Rose And Slew As Many Of The
Moors As Covered The Body Of Lorenzo, And Then Fell Dead Among Them.
At
length the ship sunk, and of above an hundred men who belonged to her
only nineteen escaped.
In all the Portuguese ships an hundred and forty
men were slain, while the enemy lost upwards of six hundred. The other
captains got to Cochin, where the viceroy then was, and who received the
intelligence of his sons glorious death with wonderful resolution.
Soon after the defeat of the Portuguese fleet at Chaul, Almeyda received
a letter from Malek Azz. This man was born in slavery, being descended
of heretic Christian parents of Russia, and had risen by degrees to the
rank he now held. The origin of his advancement was owing to the
following trivial incident. One day a kite flying over the king of
Cambaya, muted on his head, on which the king was so enraged that he
declared he would give all he was worth to have the kite killed. Malek
Azz who heard this, was an excellent bowman, and immediately let fly an
arrow which brought down the kite. The king of Cambaya rewarded this
lucky shot so bountifully, that the archer soon rose to be lord of Diu,
a famous sea-port in Guzerat, seated on a triangular peninsula, which is
joined to the continent by so small an isthmus that it is generally
reputed an island. In this letter to the viceroy, Malek Azz craftily
endeavoured to secure himself at the same time both in the favour of the
king of Cambaya, and to conciliate the Portuguese, though he mortally
hated them for the injury they had done to the trade of Diu.
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