Botello knew how pleased King John would be with the
news. He resolved to be the bearer of the good tidings, and thus to
restore himself to the royal favor. His plan was a bold and daring one;
in fact, considering the known dangers of the sea, and the then
imperfect state of navigation, it must have seemed almost hopeless; but
he suffered no doubts or apprehensions to prevent him from carrying it
into immediate effect. In order to conceal his design, he gave out that
he was going on a boat excursion up the Gulf of Cambaya, to visit the
court of the now friendly Badur. Two young soldiers, of inferior degree,
named Juan de Sousa and Alfonzo Belem, readily consented to accompany
him. The boat selected for the voyage was a small affair--something like
a modern jolly boat, though of rather greater beam in proportion to its
other dimensions; its length was sixteen feet, its breadth nine feet.
Four Moorish slaves from Melenda, on the coast of Africa, were selected
to work the boat, while two native servants, having Portuguese blood in
their veins, completed the crew.

Botello's preparations for the voyage were soon made; and waiting only
to secure a copy of the treaty with Badur, and plans of the fort which
had been commenced, he ordered the short mast, with its tapering lateen
yard, to be raised, and the sail trimmed close to the breeze blowing
into the roadstead of Diu. But instead of turning up along the northern
coast of the Gulf of Cambaya, he directed the bow of his little bark
boldly out to sea.

His companions knew but little of navigation; but they knew enough to
know that a south-westerly course was hardly the one on which to reach
Cambaya. To the remonstrances of Juan and Alfonzo, Botello simply
replied that he preferred sailing south with the wind, to rowing north
against it; and they would find the course he had chosen the safest and
shortest in the end.

In this way they sailed for three days. On the morning of the fourth,
Botello found that it would be impossible for him longer to turn a deaf
ear to the mutterings of discontent among his crew. It was high time for
an explanation of his plans; and trusting to his eloquence and
influence, he proceeded to unfold his design.

Imagine the astonishment and dismay depicted in the countenances of the
servants and sailors when he told them that he purposed making the long
and dangerous voyage to Lisbon in the miserable little boat in which
they had embarked. But as h