Khojah Zofar continued to press the siege, and there was much slaughter and destruction on both sides; but this was more evident and prejudicial in the castle, owing to the small space and the weakness of the garrison.  Mascarenhas on his part exerted every means for defence, always repairing to wherever there was most danger, as desirous of gaining equal honour with Silveyra who had so gallantly defended the same place only a few years before.  He was no less fortunate in courageous women than Silveyra, as those now in the castle encouraged the men to fight valiantly, and both assisted and relieved them in the labour of repairing the walls.  On one occasion that some Turks had got within the walls and had taken post in a house, one of these valiant females ran there with a spear and fought against the enemy, till Mascarenhas came up with his reserve and put them all to the sword.  Zofar used every effort and device to fill up the ditches and to batter down the walls of the castle; but equal industry was exerted by the besieged to repair the breaches and to clear out the ditches, the prime gentry doing as much duty on those occasions as the private soldiers and masons; repairing every night such parts of the walls and bastions as had been ruined in the day.

Astonished to see all the defences thus restored, and angry at the obstinate resistance of so small a garrison, Zofar made a furious assault upon the castle, but had his head carried off by a cannon-ball.  “In this violent death he fulfilled the prediction of his mother at Otranto, who having in vain endeavoured to prevail upon him to return into the bosom of the church, used to superscribe her letters to him in the following manner. To Khojah Zofar my son, at the gates of hell.” He was succeeded by his son Rumi Khan, who inherited his fortune and command, and was as eager as his father to reduce the castle of Diu.  Being in great straits, Mascarenhas was under the necessity of applying to the governor-general at Goa and the commanders of the neighbouring garrisons for reinforcements, on which occasion a priest was employed, who run great danger, as the sea was at this season scarcely navigable:  But then Portugal had some decii and reguli, while it now has only the grief of wanting such patriots[366].

[Footnote 366:  It is hardly necessary to observe that this is the expression of D. Faria in the seventeenth century, when Portugal groaned under the yoke of the Austrian sovereigns of Spain.—­E.]

In the mean time Rumi Khan and Juzar Khan gave a general assault, particularly directing their efforts against the bastions of St John and St Thomas, where they found a vigorous resistance and lost a prodigious number of men.  Yet numbers at length prevailed, and the enemy gained a temporary possession of the bastion of St Thomas.  The garrison adding fury to despair, made so desperate an effort to recover the bastion, that they made a wonderful slaughter