_ 35 _ by orders from Portugal, relayed through the Viceroy D. Afonso de Noronha. After an eighteen-day barrage the small fort was almost destroyed, food was short but especially water because the cistern had not yet been finished. Using a captive, who was now a renegade, by the name of João da Barca, whom he had brought along, Piri-bey proposed an honorable surrender to João de Lisboa, which our captain felt compelled to accept. But hardly had the handover been concluded than Piri-bey put his men ashore and seized everything, without forgetting the artillery of the fort. Having performed this easy task, he advanced against Ormuz and disembarked in the city abandoned by the civilian population which had taken refuge on the island of Kishm. He immediately laid siege to the stronghold where the captain had 900 Portuguese, the king of the country and some prominent people. D. Alvaro dispatched two ships one after the other with a warning to India. Then he evacuated the carracks anchored in the port and moored them alongside the fortress with only the artillerymen. The walls were pounded in such a way and with such fierce onslaughts that at the end of three weeks of bombardment and assaults, paid for at a very high price, the Turks gave up. They reembarked their survivors and went on to Basra. But heavy damage had been done in the
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