Travels in India (Tavernier) 34.1.7

34.1.7

He himself headed thirty of his soldiers, and accompanying Father Zenon they all went out of the fort together towards midnight, and concealed themselves till daylight in a part of the mountain upon which this chapel of the holy Virgin was situated, where they could not be seen. The Governor of St. Thomé did not fail, according to his custom, to go to the chapel shortly after sunrise, and having got out of his pallankeen and ascended the hill, which was rough, on foot, he was immediately seized by the Irish captain and his soldiers, who emerged from the ambuscade with Father Zenon, and carried him off to Madras to the convent of the Capuchins, and put him in the chamber which had been prepared for him. The Governor, much surprised to find himself carried off in this manner, protested strongly against Father Zenon, and threatened him with the resentment which the King of Portugal would evince when he heard what he had dared to undertake against a Governor of one of his towns. This was his daily discourse during the time he was kept in the cell, and Father Zenon simply replied that he believed he was much more gently treated at Madras than Father Ephraim was in the Inquisition at Goa, whither he, the Governor, had sent him; that he had only to cause the Father to be brought back, and they would replace him at the foot of the hill where he had been seized, with as much right as the others had little to carry off Father Ephraim. However, for five or six days the St.