he sudden ceased; insomuch, that no infection was from
thenceforward caught; and they, who had been infected, were cured,
without taking any remedy. Besides this contagious disease, the famine
raged to that degree, that multitudes of people daily died of hunger.
This second judgment was likewise diverted at the same time; for,
together with the vessel, which bore the sacred body, there came in a
fleet of ships, which were laden with all manner of provisions, to supply
the necessities of the town.

These so considerable favours ought to have obliged the inhabitants to
have honoured the body of their benefactor with a sepulchre which was
worthy of him. In the mean time, whether the fear of their governor
withheld them, or that God permitted it for the greater glory of his
servant, having taken the body out of the chest, they buried it without
the church, where the common sort of people were interred; and, which was
yet more shameful, they made the grave too scanty; so that crushing the
body to give it entrance, they broke it somewhere about the shoulders,
and there gushed out blood, which diffused a most fragrant odour. And
farther, to carry their civility and discretion to the highest point,
they trampled so hard upon the earth, which covered the blessed corpse,
that they bruised it in many parts; as if it had been the destiny of that
holy man to be tormented by the people of Malacca, both during his life,
and after his decease. The sacred corpse remained thus without honour,
till the month of August, when Father John Beyra came from Goa, in his
return to the Moluccas, with two companions whom Gaspar Barzaeus, the
vice-provincial, had given him, pursuant to the orders of Father Xavier.
This man, having always had a tender affection for the saint, was most
sensibly afflicted for his death; and could not think of continuing his
voyage to the Moluccas, till he had looked upon the body, of which so
many wonders were related. Opening himself on that subject to James
Pereyra, and two or three other friends of the dead apostle, they took up
his body privately one night. The corpse was found entire, fresh, and
still exhaling a sweet odour; neither had the dampness of the ground,
after five months burial, made the least alteration in him: they found
even the linen which was over his face tinctured with vermilion blood.

This surprising sight so wrought upon their minds, that they thought it
their duty, not to lay it again into th