Storia do Mogor 182.3

182.3

Their getting time enough to retire was due to the conduct of a friar, one Frey Pedro de Sylveira, an Augustinian and a great friend of mine, he who had defended the crossing, as I have said (ante, II. 209). Seeing that the viceroy was in great peril, he exerted himself to make up a fictitious body of troops close to the bridge. He gathered caffres (African slaves), serving men, and scullions, whom he ordered to plunder a neighbouring open field of its sugar-cane. They were all to hold a sugar-cane at their side, standing all in a row, and making a noise with a few matchlocks. Thus they stood drawn up in front of the enemy, who, on beholding them, imagined that they were reinforcements on the way. They, too, called a halt, and relinquished pursuit of the viceroy. The latter had thus time to re-embark, but many men stuck fast in the mud, and were killed by the enemy's arrows or bullets; others were drowned. The viceroy, on embarking, took his matchlock and shot his horse to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy, and Dom Rodrigo did the same to his. On this occasion the viceroy came back with a slight bullet wound in the left arm.