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After dinner, finding myself alone with Gama, I asked him what was the meaning of it all, and this is what he told me: "A father, whose name I do not know yet, had requested the assistance of the Vicar-General to prevent his son from carrying off a young girl, with whom he intended to leave the States of the Church; the pair had arranged to meet at midnight in this very square, and the Vicar, having previously obtained the consent of our cardinal, as I told you yesterday, gave orders to the bargello to dispose his men in such a way as to catch the young people in the very act of running away, and to arrest them.
The king's reply not being sent within the time specified by the admiral, the latter set sail and anchored at the distance of sixteen miles from Calicut. After another fruitless attack by the Hindoos, the two agents returned on board, and a portion of the hostages whom Gama had secured were given up. Diaz brought back with him a curious letter from the Zamorin to the King of Portugal.
Da Gama returned to India in 1504, proclaiming the king of Portugal lord of the seas, and wantonly destroying with all hands a large vessel having several hundred people on board near the Indian coast.
I told Therese of my unfortunate visit, and we both, laughed at it; it was the best thing we could do. "I shall be glad to see you at the opera," said she, "and you can get into my dressing-room if you give the door-keeper a small piece of money." The Abbe Gama came as he promised, to take me to Marshal Botta, a man of high talents whom the affair of Genoa had already rendered famous.
While Perez and the others were absent on this errand, it drew far into the night; and not choosing to go off till he learnt what success Perez had met with, he at length agreed to stay all night. Having placed De Gama in the house of a Moor for the night, the kutwal pretended that he would go in search of the three mariners who were absent; but he did not return till next morning.
My servant came soon after, and I ordered him to lock the door of my room as soon as he finished cleaning it, and to bring me the key at the Abbe Gama's apartment, where I was going. I found Gama in conversation with the auditor sent by the Vicar-General. As soon as he had dismissed him, he came to me, and ordered his servant to serve the chocolate.
Although contemporary historians are silent upon the incidents of his life after his return, recent research has been rewarded by the discovery of his tomb at Santarem, and M. Ferdinand Denis has happily proved that, like Vasco da Gama, he received the title of Dom as a reward for his glorious deeds.
All these matters being properly arranged, De Gama departed from Cananor for Portugal on the 20th December 1502 ; with thirteen ships richly laden, three of which had taken in their cargoes at Cananor, and the other ten at Cochin. The whole fleet arrived in safety at Mozambique, where the ship commanded by Stephen de Gama having sprung a great leak, was unladen and laid on shore to be repaired.
Vasco da Gama was much struck by the barbaric splendour of this petty Oriental potentate, little aware that in the far-off interior there were other sovereigns possessed of infinitely greater wealth and power, with whom the Portuguese would have found it impossible to contend.
The Portuguese were still more malcontent than the Spaniards. They had gained little by the absorption of their kingdom by Spain, save participation in the war against the republic, the result of which had been to strip them almost entirely of the conquests of Vasco de Gama and his successors, and to close to them the ports of the Old World and the New.
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