Page:India in the Fifteenth Century, being a Collection of Narratives of Voyages to India.djvu/99

Rh Portugall, and being a boy, he went into Castile, and gat into the service of Don Alfonso, Duke of Sicile; and when the warre began betweene Portugall and Castile, hee returned home with Don John Gusman, brother to the said duke, which placed him in the house of Alfonso, king of Portugall; who for his valour presently made him a man at arms, and he was continually in that warre, and served also abroad in France. After the death of king Alfonso, he was one of the guard of the king Don John his Sonne, untill the time of the treasons; when he sent him into Castile, because he spake the Castilian tongue very well, to spie out who were those gentlemen of his subjects which practised there against him. And returning out of Castile, he was sent into Barbarie, where he stayed a time, and learned the Arabian tongue, and was afterward sent to conclude a peace with the king of Tremizen; and being returned he was sent again to the king Amoli bela gegi, which restored the bones of the infant Don Fernando. At his returne he found that the king Don John, desiring by all meanes that his ships should find out the spiceries, had determined to send by land certaine men to discover as much as they might. And Alfonso de Paiva was chosen for this enterprise, a citizen of Castle Blanco, a very skilfull man, and very expert in the Arabian tongue.

"When Peter de Covillan was returned, king John called him and told him secretly, that having alwayes knowne him loyall and his faithfull servant, and readie to doe his majestic good service; seeing