CHAPTER XXXII - How Antam Gonçalvez, Garcia Homem, and Diego Affonso, set out for Cape Branco

Summary

It would be well that we should now return to that squire who in the past year remained at the Rio d'Ouro, as we have said already.

And his service was of especial merit, and is worthy of great remembrance. For, as often as I consider it, I marvel much at the same. And what shall I say of a single man, who had never been in that land (and there was not nor had there been any other whom he knew or of whom he had heard), willing thus to stay among a race little less than savage, whose nature and wiles he knew not?

Let me consider with what a countenance he would first appear before them, and for what end he would say he was remaining, or how he would be able to arrange with them about food and other things for his use. It is true that he had already been a captive among the other Moors, and in this part of the Mediterranean Sea, where he acquired a knowledge of their language; but I know not if it would serve him among these. Antam Gonçalvez who had left him there, remembering his story, spoke to the Infant about him in this wise:—

“Your Highness knoweth how John Fernandez, your squire, stayed at the Rio d'Ouro, to learn all he could about that land, small things as well as great, to inform you of the same, even as he knew was your desire; and you know how many months he hath been there, for your service.