_ 286 _ even more, because as soon as the bombardment ceased, they shouted many things at them from their camp that sounded provocative, calling them “cacklers, meaning chickens, who were good for nothing and were cooped up”, and other things of a similar nature. But the soldiers made fun of them in return, saying that “they were talking because their captain would not give them permission to go after them, because it if he did, they were going to find lions and not chickens, and the time would come when they would demonstrate this to them”. Whereupon, for that reason they grumbled publicly about the captain. But because that fortress, which the Kings of Portugal often used to curb the intransigence of the Turk, was the most important in the whole of India, D. Alvaro de Noronha intended to make it secure, as he was not sure about what was going on in the army. Moreover, he was suffering from the four-day fever so those things saddened him and made him dejected. When Gonçalo Guedes de Roberedo, the captain of the Santiago bulwark saw how much the captain wanted to have a spy handy, he volunteered to go and capture one. The captain accepted his offer and ordered a hundred men to be ready to leave that night.
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