Another anecdote illustrates Albuquerque's personal admiration of warlike prowess. Manoel de Lacerda was wounded in the face by an arrow; but nevertheless he killed a mounted Turk, seized his horse, and continued to fight with the broken arrow fixed in his face and his armour covered with blood. At this moment the Turks rallied and attacked Lacerda's force with 500 men. Albuquerque, on receiving information of this resistance, came up with his reserve to the point of danger. 'As soon as Manoel de Lacerda beheld Affonso de Albuquerque, he dismounted his charger and presented it to him. When Affonso de Albuquerque saw him with his armour all smirched with blood, he embraced him and said, "Sir Manoel de Lacerda, I declare to you that I am greatly envious of you, and so would Alexander the Great have been, had he been here, for you look more gallant for an evening's rendezvous than the Emperor Aurelian."'[12] [Footnote 12: Albuquerque's _Commentaries_, vol. iii. p. 12.] The moment the victory was won, Affonso de Albuquerque gave thanks to God, and promised to erect a church in honour of St. Catherine, whose feast day is the 25th November, on the site of the gate which had been so hardly won. He also conferred the honour of {88} knighthood upon some of the most distinguished of the younger soldiers, among whom were Frederico Fernandes, who had been the first man to enter the city, and Manoel da Cunha, a younger son of his former commander, Tristão da Cunha. As soon as the Portuguese were in entire possession of Goa, Albuquerque directed that the Muhammadan population, men, women and children, should be put to the sword. This cruel butchery is far more to Albuquerque's discredit than the hanging of Ruy Dias, for which the poet Camoens so strongly condemns him. It is only partially justified by Albuquerque's belief that the Muhammadans of Goa had behaved treacherously towards him in the spring and had admitted Yusaf Adil Sháh into the island. It is more likely that it was mainly due to Albuquerque's crusading hatred against the religion of the Prophet. He also gave up the city to plunder, and for three days his soldiers were occupied in the work of sacking it. He then set to work to repair the walls and ramparts, and especially to rebuild the citadel. His loss of the place in the spring made him particularly anxious to complete this work, and to set an example he himself did not hesitate to set his hands to it. When the citadel was completed he ordered a stone to be set up containing the names of all the captains who had served at the assault. But there was so much dissension as to the order in which the names should be engraved, every one desiring to be first, that eventually he placed on it only these words {89} '_Lapidem quem reprobaverunt ædificantes_'--_the stone which the builders rejected_.[13]