caused the gilt
leather hangings of his apartments to be made into coats for his
soldiers.

As the enemy had raised a mount near the castle which overlooked the
walls, whence they greatly annoyed the enemy, Don Juan and Don Pedro de
Almeyda sallied out with an hundred men and destroyed that work, killing
300 Moors. At another time Martin Botello went out with ten men to
endeavour to make some prisoners, to procure intelligence. This party
fell upon a post of the enemy occupied by eighteen men, all of whom fled
except one _Nubian_, who bravely endeavoured to defend himself against
the whole eleven. Botello closed with him, and finding him hard to
overcome while he touched the ground with his feet, raised him in his
arms as Hercules did Anteus, and carried him to the fort by main
strength. The assaults were frequently renewed, and the besieged were
worn out with fatigue and reduced to the last extremity by famine, being
forced to feed even upon naseous vermin. A crow or a vulture taken while
feeding upon the dead bodies was so great a dainty for the sick that it
sold for five crowns. Even the ammunition was almost spent. In this
extremity, the enemy gave a fresh assault and forced their way into the
bastion of St John, whence they were driven out. Scarcely had they
retired when the bastion blew up with a vast explosion, carrying up 73
of the garrison into the air, ten of whom came down alive. Among these
was Diego de Sotomayor, who fell into the fort with his spear still in
his hand. One soldier fell in a similar manner among the enemy, and was
immediately slain. _It was no fable that armed men were seen in the air
on this occasion_[367]. Foreseeing the danger, as he believed from the
retirement of the enemy so suddenly that they had secretly caused it to
be undermined, Mascarenhas gave orders for the Portuguese soldiers to
retire from the bastion; but one Reynoso prevented them from doing so,
unaware of what was intended, upbraiding them for cowardice.

[Footnote 367: This is an evident allusion of De Faria to the ridiculous
reports so often propagated among the Portuguese and Spaniards of those
days, of heavenly champions aiding them in battle against the
infidels.--E.]

Thirteen thousand of the enemy immediately attacked the breach which was
formed by the explosion, and were at first resisted only by five men,
till Mascarenhas came up with fifteen more. Even the women came forward
to assist in defending the breach: