The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s4.57

c7.s4.57

Christians, that is to say, of Nestorians, who are schismatics and heretics.” The friars were apparently hidden in one of these Nestorian houses, and the Kadi accidently heard of it, and sent for them, and Friar Thomas of Tolentino, Friar James of Padua, and Friar Demetrius a Georgian lay brother “good at the tongues” went, but Friar Peter of Sienna was left at home to take care of their things. There they began to dispute, and Friar Thomas confounded the Saracens as to Christ. Then the Kadi and the Saracens urged them to say what they thought of Mahomet. So, after trying to evade the question, Friar Thomas at last said, “Mahomet is the son of perdition, and hath his place in hell with the devil his father.” Then the Saracens tied the friars up in the sun, that they might die a dreadful death by the intense heat. But after six hours they were cheerful and unscathed. So then they selected to burn them, and kindled a great fire “on the maidan, that is the Piazza of the city,” and threw in Friar James first, and it blazed so high and wide that they could not see him, but they heard him invoking the Virgin. And when the fire was spent there he was unhurt. Then they made a much larger fire, and stripped him naked, and covered him and the wood with oil and threw him in again, while Thomas and Demetrius prayed fervently. But he again came out unhurt. Then the Malik (or podesta) tried to rescue them, and conveyed them “across a certain arm of the sea, that was a little distance from the city where there was a certain suburb,” and there they were received into the house of an idolator. But the Kadi overpersuaded the Malik, and sent four men to kill the friars, and caused all the Christians to be imprisoned; and after talking in a friendly way to the friars, the four men cut off the heads of Thomas, James, and Demetrius. And the air was illuminated, and there was wonderful thunder and lightning, and the ship the friars had come in went to the bottom. And next day they found Friar Peter and tried to convert him, and on his refusing tortured him and then hung him up to a tree, and as he came down unhurt they clove him asunder and in the morning no trace of him could be found. Then a vision appeared to the Malik which disturbed him so much that he released the Christians, and “caused four mosques to be built in honour of the Friars, and put Saracen priests in each of them to abide continually.” But the Emperor of Delhi sent for the Malik and put him to death, and the Kadi fled.