. Her son happening to be slain in one of the attacks, she
immediately drew away his body, and returned to the place of danger, and
when the fight ended she went and buried her son.

Perceiving that the Turks were undermining the bulwark which he
commanded, Gasper de Sousa made a sally with seventy men to prevent that
work and made a great slaughter of the enemy. When retreating he missed
two of his men and returned to rescue them; but being surrounded by the
enemy they cut the tendons of his hams, after which he fought upon his
knees till he was overpowered and slain. The mine was countermined; but
the continual labour to which the besieged were subjected became
insupportable, and they were utterly unable to repair the many breaches
in their works. At this conjuncture, four vessels arrived from the
viceroy Don Garcia, and landed only a reinforcement of twenty men.
Solyman was much concerned at this relief though small, and was
astonished the fort should hold out against so many assaults, more
especially as Zofar had assured him he might carry it in two. At the
beginning of the siege the garrison consisted of six hundred men, many
of whom were slain and several of the cannon belonging to the fort had
burst; yet Solyman began to lose confidence, and looked anxiously to the
sea, fearful of the Portuguese fleet which he had learnt was coming
against him. This induced him to press the siege more vigorously,
especially against the sea bulwark where Antonio de Sousa commanded,
which was furiously attacked by fifty barks, two of which were sunk by
the Portuguese cannon. The Turks made several attempts to scale this
bulwark, in all of which they were repulsed with great slaughter, yet
returned repeatedly to the charge with similar bad fortune. Sousa sent
off his wounded men from the rampart to have their wounds dressed. Among
these was a person named Fernando Ponteado, who waiting his turn heard
the noise of a fresh assault, and forgetting the dressing ran
immediately to his post where he received a fresh wound. Going back to
get dressed, a third assault recalled him before the surgeon had time to
attend to his wants, and he was a third time wounded, and at length
returned to get all his three wounds dressed at once.

By this time, out of the original garrison of 600 men, only 250 remained
that were able to stand to their arms. Solyman was almost in despair of
success, yet resolved to make a desperate effort to carry the place.