_ 314 _ the bulwarks, a job which the captain divided up among several noblemen so as to finish it more quickly. The engineer set about excavating the mining galleries and went to some covered latrines that were in a recess of one of the bulwarks which was heavily reinforced with cement on the outside, in which he placed some barrels and left a gap to set them alight. With this work on the mines in full swing Dom Antonio was standing in the shelter of a rampart with the top men of the fleet, when Manuel de Vasconcelos (who was one of those responsible for that work) approached him and asked him to go and see his mineshaft which was almost ready. Whereupon, Dom Antonio set off with him accompanied by most of those who were there. They had not travelled far when a spark, from one of the fires burning in the houses of the fortress, fell and landed on the loose powder surrounding the barrels in the latrine of the mine shaft next to the bulwark which Dom Antonio had left. These caught fire and blew up the latrine and the bulwark, which fell on those who were in its shelter, leaving forty Portuguese dead and buried there, with many others disfigured. Among the known dead, were Pedro Afonso de Avelar's son, Pero Coelho de Castro, Baltasar do Amaral, the son of Doctor Francisco Dias de
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