may come on board your ships to learn the news." Vasco
da Gama replied that he might come on board in peace, and that they
would do him honour, as they were highly pleased to see a person who
could speak their language. On this he came up the side, when he was
placed in a chair, and the question as to who he was, and where he came
from, was put to him.

The Captain-Major now ordered Nicolas Coelho, who was in the other ship,
to come with a boat full of armed men, on the side where the fusta lay,
and to board and capture her crew.

Several men were stationed ready to seize the Jew, and at the same
moment he and all his men were then suddenly made prisoners. The Jew,
on finding himself bound, complained bitterly of the way he had been
treated, having trusted to the safe conduct which had been given him.
The Captain-Major replied that he was aware of the treachery that he had
intended, and that he should be flogged, and tortured by having hot fat
poured on him, if he refused to confess his evil intentions. The Jew,
finding there was no escape, acknowledged that he was worthy of death,
but entreated that the noble Captain would have pity on his white beard.

On this the Captain-Major ordered him to be unbound, and becomingly
dressed. The Jew then informed the Admiral that when a lad he was
living at Grenada, that on the capture of that city by the Christians he
had left Spain, and travelling through many lands, he had gone to Mecca.
Thence he had made his way to India, where he had taken service with
Sabayo, who had made him captain-major of his fleet; that to please his
master he had undertaken to capture the Portuguese ships. He now
repented of his design, and as a proof of his desire to obtain the
friendship of the Portuguese, he offered to deliver up all the fustas
into their hands.

It was therefore arranged that the Jew should go in his own fusta,
manned by Portuguese, and that several boats should follow, with the
crews well armed. As soon as it was dark they pushed off from the
ships. As they approached where the fustas lay, the people on board
hailed to know who was coming, when the Jew replied, "It is I. I bring
some relations with me."

On this the fusta and boats dashed on, the Captain-Major shouting his
war-cry of Saint George, while the crews, who had kept their matches
concealed, shouting and firing their guns, threw their powder-jars among
the sleeping crews, who being thus alarmed, leaped into