Unfortunately for them, Pacheco had wind of the arrangement and, aware of his great danger, resolved to save the Nairs their trouble. He accordingly set friendly Nairs in palm-trees, and as soon as the first army started they gave the fire signal. The King of Calicut hurried forward, but in the darkness either army mistook the other for an ambush of natives from Cochin, and a long, fierce battle followed between them, while Pacheco listened to the uproar but awaited the enemy in vain. At dawn the two hostile armies found out their mistake and retired in horror and dismay, while Pacheco, like some great gloating demon, appeared in the increasing light to add to their confusion with his artillery.
This was the last serious attack, and one by one the lords and princes opposed to him came to terms with Pacheco. By boundless energy, complete fearlessness, bluff, and the power of inspiring men at will with fear or with confidence and devotion, Pacheco had achieved this amazing triumph, which certainly had far-reaching effects on Portuguese rule in India.
The King of Cochin lacked Pacheco’s imposing personality, but he was affectionate and reliable throughout, bidding his subjects obey Pacheco as they would his own person, and this despite the fact that Pacheco’s behaviour was often very disconcerting. More than once he all but hanged some treacherous Moors, although the King had warned him that this would entail the cutting off of provisions from Cochin.
On another occasion a body of hostile Nairs made a surprise attack on the island of Cochin, but were beaten off by the workers in the rice swamps with their rustic weapons. Their victory was the easier because a Nair considered himself polluted if one of these low-caste peasants approached him.
Pacheco, delighted at the victory of these humble workmen, and mindful moreover of more than one desertion of Nairs at difficult moments, suggested that the King should make Nairs of these men, in the belief apparently that the caste system could be brushed aside or altered at will.[10] It was only after heated and repeated argument that the King was able to persuade him that the thing he asked was impossible. The heroic labourers were, however, permitted to bear arms and to approach Nairs in future.
For himself Pacheco refused the King’s spices and other gifts, aware that he could ill afford them, and accepted only the strange coat-of-arms that the King bestowed on him—five crowns of gold on a crimson ground—emblem of the much blood he had shed in his victory over five kings—surrounded by eight green castles on blue and white.
At the beginning of the year 1505 he set out for home, to the sorrow of the King of Cochin, and in the summer arrived at Lisbon. He was received with great honour; on the Thursday after his arrival he walked with the King in solemn procession from the Cathedral to the Convent of São Domingos. The Bishop of Vizeu preached, exalting Pacheco’s heroic deeds, and similar services were held throughout Portugal. News of his exploits were sent to the Pope and to the Kings of Christendom.
Pacheco received a yearly pension of 50,000 réis, a considerable sum in those days,[11] and other gifts and favours, and he married D. Antonia de Albuquerque, daughter of one of King Manoel’s secretaries. Better still, he received further employment from the King, being entrusted with the survey of the coast of South-East Africa.
Already in 1505 he was at work on his Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, which had to wait nearly four centuries for a publisher. He was more accustomed to hold the sword than the pen, but his book contains much of interest and affords occasional insight into the character of its author. Thus he says—and the philosophic tone of the words is of interest in view of the neglect and poverty into which he is said to have fallen in his last years: “No one is content with his possessions, and in the end eight feet of earth suffice us and there ends and is consumed the vanity of our high thoughts,” and “Virtuous men who love God and are of clean heart and uncovetous are never forsaken of the grace of the Holy Spirit.”
He dwells more than once on the iniquity of oblivion wrought by time: “Difference of ages and length of time hide the knowledge of things and render them forgotten.” His descriptions are clearly those of an eyewitness, as that of “a little river which flows from the top of the mountains to the sea through reeds and mint and rushes and wild-olives.” He praises Prince Henry the Navigator and King João II, whose deeds are worthy to be told “by the ancient fathers of eloquence and learning,” and it was in gratitude to them, a gratitude which posterity shares, that he wrote: “Experience causes us to live free of the false abuses and fables that some of the ancient cosmographers recorded.”