_ 69 _ As it was now an hour before daybreak the Captainin-Chief ordered the capstan to be wound quietly, and he approached the ship Meril and when he was close he fired a volley from four pieces of heavy artillery, which went through the ship and killed many people, and with the berços and falcões he filled many above deck, who all fell below. Nuno Vaz de Castello Branco took aim carefully and of the shots he fired from the esperas half landed below the veranda of the King and the other half on a wind-below the veranda of King and other half on a wind-shelter in which he killed many of the King’s wives and household. As the urgency was great, Nuno Vaz occupied himself with the Meril, which was on fire but firing a number of guns which were doing damage to the Captain-in-Chief’s flagship. It pleased Our Lord that one of his shots struck the mast and brought it down, and in its fall it killed many Moors, and such was the commotion that many Moors jumped into the sea. By this time the flagship had grappled with it, and Braz da Silva, a young nobleman, was the first aboard her and with him his brother, Manuel da Silva and with them Dom Antonio de Noronha, Dom Jeronimo de Lima and about thirty men, who attacked the few remaining Moors with lances, and the ship was soon emptied.
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