_ 124 _ towards the city carrying refreshments. He went after it, and when the Arabs saw they couldn’t escape they put it ashore and ran away, abandoning their boat without Jorge da Silveira being able to catch any of them. He then pulls the boat into the sea with a cable, and while he was thus occupied some Arabs arrived to see if they could save it. But they could not and found it already at sea. From one of the renegades who came with the Arabs, a man from Genoa, Jorge da Silveira learnt that one of the ships which had left Ormuz was now in India. He said that the captains who had escaped were aboard it; they had brought a message from the Viceroy, who said that in case Afonso de Albuquerque should return, they were not to obey him; it also told Afonso de Albuquerque not to make trouble for the Arab ships and to let them sail wherever they wished. Therefore, the renegade told him that he ought to go to India, since furthermore the city was very well fortified and full of people. Jorge da Silveira replied that the commander-in-chief had not come to Ormuz with the intention of leaving it, but to wage a relentless war on the city, until Cojeatar asked him for mercy; besides, apart from the two ships he had brought, which had arrived from Portugal that same year, he was expecting others which had followed behind. Thereupon Jorge da Silveira returned
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