He was up early in the morning, and expressed a desire to stroll about. The Persians said: “Go where you please”; but they went with him. He contrived to lead them in the direction of the fort and to get a little ahead of them. Happening to come across two Portuguese, he declared himself to be an escaped Christian; and one of them immediately hastened back to the fort, taking Varthema with him. Lorenzo de Almeyda, son of the Viceroy and Commandant of the fort was at breakfast. Varthema cast himself on his knees before him and besought protection. Just at this instant, the hubbub at Cannanore, which arose on the discovery of Varthema’s escape, dinned in their ears. The artillerymen made ready; but everything quieted down; and Varthema revealed the preparations for war which were being made at Calicut. Lorenzo de Almeyda sent him to his father Don Francisco, the Viceroy, who was at Cochin, where the Portuguese had supported a revolting tributary, and made themselves masters of a little State.
The Viceroy, delighted at getting accurate word of the designs in progress at Calicut, gave a very favourable audience to the refugee.
Varthema was quite sensible of the generous hospitality and sincere affection which Cazazionor had bestowed on him. He not merely mentions, but reiterates the fact. Yet he exhibits not the smallest compunction at having tricked and deserted him. All moral obligation was as a feather, when weighed against the achievement of personal freedom and that self-fulfilment which was the goal of the Italian of his period. One wonders what were the sentiments of that deluded and forsaken friend. As for Varthema, once more among Europeans, and those Europeans of a cognate race, he absorbs their prejudice against Orientals and “Moslem dogs”; and one realizes how deeper even than to-day, and how impassable, was the gulf which separated East from West. It is to his credit that he faithfully fulfilled his promise to Joan Maria and Piero Antonio; he obtained a pardon and safe-conduct for them from the Viceroy, and a promise as to their safety from all officials who might put an obstacle in the way. To induce the Viceroy to grant a pardon was easy; for that dignitary was aware that he was likely to deprive the foe of two artillerymen and add them to his own forces; moreover he would learn much from the intermediary messengers who were to be sent to them. On Varthema’s return to Cannanore, he found a serviceable Hindu, whom he sent five times to the two Milanese, holding his wife and children as a pledge of faithful service. The Milanese were instructed to say not one single word to their wives, who were natives, or to their slaves; but to leave these behind them, and steal off, at dead of night, with what money and valuable jewels they could bring with them. All was arranged; but a slave had been stealthily watching his master’s doings; he went to the Zamorin, and told his tale. The Zamorin refused to credit it; but put a guard over the Milanese. The slave, who probably was filled with a spirit of revenge, for which he may have had good cause, next went to the Moorish Cadi. The enraged traders, when the secret doings of the Milanese were made known to them, collected a hundred ducats and sent this to the “King of the Yogis,” or ascetic Fakirs. Presently, the homes of the Christians were surrounded by a mob of Hindu devotees, sounding horns, and yelling for alms. “They want more than alms,” said the unhappy men. The fanatics rushed the houses; and, although the two Europeans fought desperately for their lives, they were slaughtered; yet not before six Yogis lay dead at their feet, and forty were wounded. It was reported that the infuriated Hindus cut their throats when they had overwhelmed them and drank their blood.
Somehow, the native wife of Joan Maria contrived to escape from Calicut, and made her way to Cannanore, bringing her little son with her. Varthema, although he had left his Persian benefactor without a sigh, was touched at the condition of the little half-caste. He remembered the aid which the Milanese had given him and the pleasant nights they had spent together; and the tragedy which had ensued on their intercourse pierced his feelings. He became the guardian of his friend’s son, purchasing him for eight ducats in gold, and getting him duly baptized. But the little fellow was fatally infected with the new scourge, which it would seem the Portuguese had brought with them to the East, and he died exactly a year after baptism. “I have seen this scath three thousand miles beyond Calicut,” says Varthema; “and it is said that it began about seventeen years aforetime; and that it is far worse than ours.”
CHAPTER X.
WAR BY LAND AND SEA
Albeit sheltered by a cognate Latin people, our traveller had by no means found a haven of perfect safety. In a few days, we find him taking his part in a great sea-fight between the Portuguese fleet of eleven ships (of which two were galleons and one a brigantine), commanded by Don Francisco de Almeyda, and the great Indian fleet of two hundred and nine sail, which had gathered together from all those parts of the Malabar coast which remained in the hands of the Mohammedan traders. But only eighty-four ships of the Mohammedan fleet were large sail; the rest being praus, mainly propelled by the oar. Nor were they all meant to fight: many of them were traders under convoy. As they approached, “it was as if one looked on a very big wood.” Varthema, restored to western civilization and Christianity, is borne away by the inexorable spirit of the Portuguese sea-dogs. Never saw he braver men and he is with them in their prayers to God “to confound the heathen faith.” He tells us how the Admiral incited his men, by the passion of Christ, to thrust at these dogs; for this is the day which shall cleanse them from their sins; and how the Spiritual Father, crucifix in hand, exhorted them in language so beautiful that the graceless men shed tears. All received absolution, and then the Admiral sailed past two galleons of the foe, firing broadsides into them to find out of what mettle they were. Nothing further happened that day; and next morning, the Moorish Admiral made certain overtures to be allowed to pass by in peace. “Sail by if you can,” was the reply of the Portuguese Admiral; “but first learn what manner of men we Christians be.” “Mohammed is our trust against you Christians,” retorted the Moors, and then they crowded all sail and plied the oar. Don Francisco de Almeyda let them come on until they were immediately off Cannanore; “‘for he wished the ruler of the city to see what stuff Christians were made of’.... And when the time to eat had come, the wind freshened somewhat and our Captain said: ‘now, up, my brothers; now is the time,’ and sailed for the two biggest ships.” The Moorish fleet struck up all kinds of weird, inspiriting music while the fleets met. Thrice did Almeyda’s men cast their grappling-irons on the largest galleon, and thrice they failed; but the fourth attempt was a success. The retaliatory cruelties of the Moors at Calicut were remembered, and not one of the six hundred crew was suffered to escape. Another Moorish vessel was boarded, and five hundred Moors were slaughtered. But the enemy still fought desperately and well, and managed to divide the Portuguese fleet. The galley commanded by João Serrão, who had taken Varthema from Cannanore to Cochin was surrounded by fifty vessels, great and small; and the brigantine was boarded by fifteen Moors, who drove its crew to the poop. But the captain, one Simon Martin, called aloud to Jesus Christ for victory, smote off half a dozen Moorish heads with his own hands, and cast such fear into the surviving boarders, that they threw themselves into the sea for safety. Four other Moorish vessels now drew on; but Martin saved the situation by seizing an empty barrel and making as if it were a mortar; and seeing this, the attackers turned back. Don Francisco de Almeyda then sailed into the very midst of the convoyed traders, captured seven of them, laden with spice and other goods, and sank nine or ten more by gun-fire, amongst which was one with a cargo of elephants. The Moors fled, and the pursuit was kept up by ships’ boats, to prevent any attempt at swimming ashore. About two hundred swam twenty miles and escaped; but cross-bow and lance put an end to most. Next morning all the corpses that could be recovered from the waves, or the shore, or from captured ships, were counted: they numbered three thousand six hundred; but, “by God’s grace, no Christian was killed on galley or other ship; but many were wounded during the long day of battle.” The Moors were a match for the Portuguese in battle, but not in artillery, ships or seamanship. This sea-fight took place in March, 1506, and three months later the Viceroy rewarded Varthema’s services, by making him head-factor of the Portuguese warehouses. A man with so much knowledge of Mohammedan and Hindu customs and method, speaking Arabic, and with some smattering of the native tongue; a man, withal, with such experience of the ways of the world, so diplomatic, and so masterful, would be invaluable. A little later, he was sent from Cochin to Cannanore to get behind the curtain of certain frauds; for traders from Calicut had got safe-conducts there by passing themselves off as residents of Cannanore. About this time the Râja of Cannanore died; and the new sovereign was no friend to the Portuguese. He got artillery from the Zamorin, and, from the 27th April until the 17th August there was open war, begun by Moorish traders, who attacked the Christians when they were going to a well to draw water. The latter retired to the fort, in good order; and Varthema and 200 men held it, under the captaincy of a certain Lorenzo de Britto. They had nothing to eat but nuts, rice and sugar. Water they had to draw from a well a bow-shot off, after fighting for it all the way. The investing force had more than 140 cannons; but, although it consisted of thousands of men, they were mainly armed with bows and arrows, spears, swords and shields. This host would rush on with fury, inspired by musical instruments of many kinds and the splutter of fireworks; but they never got within two stones’ cast of the fort; and every day half of a score of them were killed and the rest fled. “They said we kept the devil with us for our defence.”
At last, up came the Portuguese fleet under Tristão da Cunha, of unperished name, and his three hundred knights in shining steel, who were dissuaded with difficulty from burning Cannanore to the ground. The ocean, up to now the auxiliary and defence of the Peninsula and its Moorish traders, had become a highway for the enterprise of the armed fleets of Europe. On the arrival of this strong force, the Râja and the Moorish traders sued for peace, which the Viceroy had the foresight to grant. For, whatever victories the Portuguese might win, and at however small a cost, their position in the East was precarious. The Mohammedan world was weak as against Europe for the same reason that Europe was weak as against Constantinople: it was divided. Should the spirit of resistance once become so strong as to overcome local jealousies, with the whole Mohammedan world set aflame in Europe, Africa and Asia, and with the countless hosts of the Far East at the call of the Mohammedan trader, where had the Portuguese—nay where had Europe been?
Varthema, once again a devout Catholic, tells us how he spent leisure hours when there was peace with the natives, in trying to convert some of his old acquaintance among the traders of Cannanore to Christianity. He professes great disdain for the simplicity and ignorance of these Pagans! and the arguments he used were not precisely scrupulous, and were far from skilful.