_ 429 _ such a large army ad naval force. Suddenly, they surrounded me with the galleons. When I saw this, I ordered our ship carrying he armed skiffs to weigh anchor and told them to go alongside the enemy’s ships; and I anchored beside the King of Ghanbazi’s ship and stayed in this position until midday to await what response might come from whatever direction they might come against me, since they surrounded me in order to be in the best position. And when I realized that I was surrounded by enemy forces (and no response coming from the city), who were brandishing their sword, armed with shields and other weapons, sounding trumpets and drums, making a great noise with loud shouts to terrify me and the other, in such a horrible way that when we wanted to communicate between our ships we could not hear one another because of the noise they were making when I realized this, I did not want to wait any longer or continue to put up with the enemy’s attempts to frighten us or to be intimidated by their actions, because it seemed to me that the time had come to stop pretending ad to start fighting. We all commended ourselves to our Lord Jesus Christ and to the apostle St. James of Galicia, and vowed to die like knights. We estimated the number of men on the enemy ships to be 30,000.
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