_ 72 _ feared this reprisal and the owners of the ships which were anchored there immediately sent a message to Dom Lourenco, through two Jews, offering compensation. Dom Lourenco accepted after consulting the council, and after receiving compensation he sailed towards Chaul, where he anchored inside the harbour. Twenty ships from Cochin were being loaded there and he had to wait until they were ready, which took about one month, during this time many of our men would go and relax ashore, and some of the inhabitants who were friendly towards them told them that the Roumeliotes were in Diu with a great fleet, that they had come to fight the Portuguese, and that they were brave white men and possessed weapons and artillery like our own. They therefore advised them to go and told them where the Roumeliotes came from and by whose orders, and what their purpose was. Although our men thought that the Guzarats told them this story to frighten them, they nonetheless told Dom Lourenco about it. He laughed, saying that if this were true then someone in Cochin or Cannanore would have warned his father (i.e., the Viceroy, Francisco de Almeida), and he in turn would have warned him. He gave the same reply to the Tanadar of Chaul, who also sent him words concerning the Sultan’s fleet.
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