_ 323 _ The rest of the galleys were to remain in Basra, waging war on the Gizares. On arriving in Suez, Piri Reis beached his two galleys and transported all his booty and his Portuguese captives by camel to Alexandria. From there, he went by sea to Constantinople, less than a month after the departure of Barbarossa. There, trusting in the riches that he was carrying, he presented himself at the feet of the Turk. But as that lord, even though a heathen, tolerates no contravention of his commands on account of any influence or intimacy, he ordered him to be decapitated immediately and for the Portuguese to be put in the galleys, from where the majority were later ransomed. Of these, some reached India and others other places. Barbarossa made such good progress that he arrived in Basra at the end of July [1553]. He equipped the fifteen galleys as best he could and, provided with the finest artillery and men that he could arrange, he put to sea in August. Dom Diogo de Noronha had also left Ormuz at the beginning of the same month with his entire fleet and, while stationed off Cape Mussendum, he dispatched Gomes de Siqueira and Luis de Aguiar to Basra to spy on the
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