Scarcely had Gama set out for Europe, before the Zamorin at the instigation of the Musselmen, who saw their commercial supremacy more and more compromised, assembled his allies at Pani with the object of attacking the King of Cochin and of punishing him for the counsel and assistance which he had given to the Portuguese. The unfortunate Rajah's fidelity was now put to a hard proof. Besieged in his capital by a large force, he saw himself all at once deprived of the aid of those for whose advantage he had incurred so great a risk. Sodrez and several of his captains had deserted the post, where both honour and gratitude required them to remain, and if need were, to die in the discharge of their duty; they forsook Triumpara to go and cruise in the neighbourhood of Ormuz, and at the entrance to the Red Sea, where they calculated that the annual pilgrimage to Mecca was likely to ensure them some rich booty. The Portuguese agent vainly represented to them the unworthiness of their conduct, they set out in haste, to escape from these inconvenient reproaches. The King of Cochin, betrayed by some of the Nairs (military nobles) of his palace, who had been gained over by the Zamorin, soon saw his capital carried by assault, and was obliged to seek refuge upon an inaccessible rock in the little Island of Viopia, with those Portuguese who had remained faithful to him. When he was reduced to the last extremity, an emissary was sent to him by the Zamorin, to promise him pardon and oblivion of his offences if he would give up to him the Portuguese. But Triumpara, whose fidelity cannot be sufficiently commended, answered, "that the Zamorin might use his rights of victory; that he was not ignorant of the perils by which he was menaced, but that it was not in the power of any man to make him a traitor and a perjurer." No one could have made a nobler return than this for the desertion and cowardice of Sodrez. Vincent Sodrez had arrived at the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, when a fearful tempest occurred, in which his ship split upon the rocks, and he and his brother perished. The survivors regarded this event as a judgment of Providence for their bad conduct, and they made haste, with all sails set to return to Cochin. They were detained by contrary winds at the Laccadive Islands, and were there joined by another Portuguese squadron under the command of Francisco d'Albuquerque, who had sailed from Lisbon almost at the same time as his cousin Alfonzo d'Albuquerque the most distinguished captain of the period, who with the title of Capitam mor had started from Belem at the beginning of April, 1503.