The Portuguese in the Sea of Oman

_ 393 _ service. In this kingdom I have left my son, by name Brez Albuquerque, whom I beg Your Highness to make great as my services to you deserve. As for the affairs of India, she will speak for me and for herself." When they arrived at the bar of Goa, the goal of all his desires, it seemed that God would not permit him to go ashore for his salvation. There remained no more time than it took to send the brigantine ahead to seek out Padre Brother Domingos, the Vicar-General, who attended to the needs of his soul. He delivered up his soul after crossing the bar at five o'clock on a Sunday morning in December 1515, at the age of sixty-three years. Until the moment of his expiry he demonstrated perfect reason, both in his speech and his gestures, and showed that he was ready to be received by God. He ordered that the Passion of Christ, to which he was very devoted, be read to him. On the same day he was taken from the ship on a bier covered with brocade, with pillows for his head, hie body dressed in the white habit of the Order of Santiago, of which he was a Commander, with all the insignia of the knights of the Order. Around his neck was a velvet robe, and on his head, over a golden net, was a velvet hood; his eyes were half-open, but without the unseemliness which death brings.

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