_ 111 _ The factor told them all this, and was very friendly with Khwaja Attar and the King and the Regents, because he was to remain as factor, and also because if there was any disturbance they would be safe with the friendship of Khwaja Attar who knowing the truth about everything that happened, regretted that he had consented to the building of a fortress. He suggested to Rais Nuruddin and the councillors that they should let the work go ahead as it pleased the Captainin-Chief, who had make it very defensive, and that before it was completed they would defend it; and he would make a sudden attack on the people going to the work and to the quarry, in which there would be dead and wounded, and this would leave very few of our men; and they would fill the Moorish ships with fireworks to set the fleet alight and so all possible harm, and thus his honour would be restored. All those of the council threw all the blame on him for what had been done, which grieved Khwaja Attar, and with great care he set about arranging how all this was to come about. The Captain-in-Chief knew about this, and kept it to himself, dissembling and working as hard as he could to get the fortress into a condition when the two hundred men that he was going to put in it with good artillery could
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