_ 84 _ They were all so blinded and so rooted or else so attached to Ormuz, that they would go away no further from it than to an island that is call Queyxome which lies three leagues from this, and which proved to their misadventure. It appears that in one of the three galleys which first encountered the caturs there came a son of the Captain in Chief of this fleet, who is called Mamede Beque, who, either because it was so ordered him, or due to any effect of the storm that they met with, had become separated from the fleet of six galleys, and with which, after the skirmish was ended with our vessels, came on and made for Mascate, where a fortress has been commenced upon the high peak of the rock washed by the sea, and which the Viceroy had ordered last year to be erected; close upon this peak. There was a serra somewhat higher than the peak but to which it seemed impossible to convey any men much less artillery, and on Mamede Beque reaching the fortress he judged he would take it without artillery; and assaulting it in order to enter in, had over thirty men killed by musket shots. He then changed his tactics and brought artillery to land which he placed on four batteries and for six days attacked the fortress at the end of which his father arrived alone in
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