_ 37 _ Meanwhile, Piri-bey found himself poorly received by Pasha Marcate, who was so annoyed by his sharing in the plunder that he informed Constantinople that the admiral had disobeyed the specific instructions that had been given him. Out of fear of being arrested, and sent there by overland courier, Piri-bey embarked in three light galleys with the plundered valuables, more than a million in gold, together with the Portuguese captives from Muscat, in the hope of thus being reconciled with the Sultan. The voyage went badly because just in sight of El Katiff, he lost one of the galleys which ran aground. He was pursued at sea by D. Antão, who was notified by Luis de Aguiar (while Gomes de Siqueira remained to keep an eye on the other 22 galleys), and on arriving in Constantinople, he was strangled or beheaded by order of the Sultan, who would not tolerate the least infringement of his orders. Thus, the renowned Piri-bey came to a rather sad end. Diogo do Couto calls him a great pirate, but he was, in fact, a most cultured man, a writer, poet, geographer and hydrographer, the author of two famous books, one about the Aegean Sea, the other about the Mediterranean. The Grand Sultan was worried about the security of the rest of his galleys which had fled to Basra and he ordered
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy