Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/59

 head to be cut off; therefore he could not answer anything with certainty, nor accept her friendship, nor the trade which she offered, and for which he thanked her much, without the king (of Cochym) first commanded him."

After this palaver he recommended that she should ask the king of Cochym's permission to open up commercial intercourse with the Portuguese, an arrangement he was not likely to assent to, as besides curtailing his profits, he would lose the revenue he derived from the queen's pepper, which now passed through his kingdon for shipment. The king was naturally perplexed and "much grieved, because he did not wish to see the profit and honour of his kingdom go to another." So after talking the matter over with De Gama's factor, he resolved to leave it entirely in the hands of the captain-major, and informed the queen's messenger that the matter was left altogether to his good pleasure, no doubt himself believing that the trade would be therefore declined. But the king of Cochym had made a sad mistake, for the Portuguese navigator was a diplomatist far beyond the king's powers of comprehension; to his discomfiture and amazement Gama informed the ambassador of Coulam "that he was the king's vassal, and in that port was bound to obey him as much as the king his sovereign, and, therefore, he would obey him in whatever was his will and pleasure; and since the queen was thus his relation and friend, he was happy to do all that she wished!" Consequently he despatched two of his ships to load pepper, at "a river called Calle