Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 11).djvu/167

that the majority of the men were carried down with the ship. Many who were very good swimmers were dragged to the bottom by the force of the suction. All our men who were still on the surface tried by all the means in their power to save their lives. It was the unhappy fate of some of them to reach the enemy's ship itself, where those heretics hastened to receive them with pikes, and speared them with great cruelty. Among those they wounded Captain Gomez de Molina with a lance; however he continued to swim thus wounded, until he reached the shore, where he died from loss of blood, at the water's edge. In this way many died, and those who escaped took shelter on the island of Fortuna, eighteen leguas from the city, until some vessels might pass by.

At this moment the small Portuguese ship, seeing the outcome, laid its course to Malaca, because it had arrived only at that moment. Our ship had grappled with the enemy for six hours, from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon, when the former foundered.

Admiral Joan de Alçaga, who was chasing the enemy's almiranta, overtook it, and after he had fired two or three volleys of his artillery, musketry, and arquebuses, he grappled it on its stern-quarter on the starboard side. Our men immediately boarded the enemy, the said admiral being among the first. The enemy defended themselves well, serving their artillery and thrice setting a fire purposely with some powder cartridges, but our men hastened to put out the fire with buckets of water. The enemy seeing the strength of their assailants and how unfortunately the action was turning out, because the best of them were killed, honorably surrendered. Admiral Joan