_ 269 _ and lay siege to the fortress of Ormuz, and not leave till he had taken it. As soon as Piri Reis had equipped the galleys he launched them, in order to leave in July. This news immediately spread throughout the Strait and had already reached Ormuz by May, when it was impossible to inform the viceroy, nor could anyone be surer (of the facts) than what was generally rumoured among the foreigners. Thus, D. Alvaro de Noronha the captain of that fortress, who wanted to ascertain the truth, sent a light craft captained by Fernão Dias Sefar, an old soldier and very fine nobleman, (who was already going about dressed as a merchant and had 20,000 cruzados of his own) and gave him a brief to sail to the coast of El Shihir to await the ships that were on their way from Mecca to Qishm, [Camfar] and all the other ports, and to find out for sure if there were any galleys, if so how many and if it was known where they were bound. Fernão Dias left and stationed himself in that port-ofcall. There he received information from some boats, which confirmed that twenty-five galleys had already been launched in Suez, and it was generally reported that they were going to put in at Basra. On receiving this news, he
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