Now, inasmuch as the great Afonso Dalboquerque never went away from work, by day or by night, in the hopes of making an end of the building of the fortress with rapidity, and as the heat was great, and he himself old and in a bad state of health, the illness he suffered from began again to attack him with greater vehemence, and for eleven days he had not gone out of doors, nor had any one seen him except his own intimate friends. But, as it was thought strange that the people had not seen him, it began to be rumoured through the city that he was dead; so that he was compelled, in order to allay the apprehensions of the Moors and our own people, to show himself in public; and from that time forward he permitted some of the captains to see him, although his illness was so great that it would scarcely allow it. Every day he became worse, and felt so weak that at length, on the twenty-sixth day of the month of September, he summoned all the captains to his house, and in the presence of Pero Dalpoem, the secretary, declared to them that he was an old man, and attacked with an illness which might prove fatal at any moment.