The Persians Drove Out The
Poor Sick, Wounded, And Scorched Christians, Who Were Not Able To Help
Themselves, So That My Heart Yearned With Compassion To See Their Woeful
Plight.
In the evening, the Khan of Shiras came over, as if in triumph,
to view the castle and its great ordnance, of which there were near
three hundred pieces,[311] part of which belonged to the galleons, and
the rest to the castle.
This evening, the commanders and I, wishing to
retain possession of the church in which we had placed a quantity of
plate and treasure, for its better security against being embezzled, our
design was utterly denied by Pulot Beg, who told our commanders, in
plain terms, that they might lie out of doors. Being justly incensed at
this, we all three left the castle, the two captains going on board
their ships, while I went to the city; but, as the tide was up, and I
could not get a boat, I had to remain at the castle wall till near
midnight. At this time there came about sixty Persians, by their own
report, sent by the Khan to prevent the Arabs from conveying away any of
the ordnance which lay by the shore, but I suspect their real object was
to cut the throats of the poor Christians who lay at the shore, for want
of boats to carry them on board; but fortunately they were protected by
an English guard. Our chief business the whole of this day was to see
the poor Portuguese sent safely out of the castle, most of them so
weakened by divers maladies, but chiefly by famine, and many of them so
noisome by their putrified wounds, and scorchings with gunpowder, that
their pitiful cries and complaints might have moved pity in a heart of
stone; yet such was the cruel disposition of the Persians, that they
drove them out of the castle like so many dogs, stripping many of them
even of their shirts.
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