Next year the Earl set forth on his eighth voyage, and in June came in sight of a big Indian ship whose name was _Las Cinque Llagas_ ("the Five Wounds"), and she carried 1400 persons, of whom 270 were slaves. The Earl's _Mayflower_ was the first to get up to her, and was hotly fired into; for the Portuguese had sworn to defend their ship to the last, and fought with desperation. Don Rodrigo de Cordoba, having both his legs shattered, cried out, "Sirs, I have got this in the discharge of my duty. Be of good heart. Let no one forsake his post; let us perish rather than be taken." Twice did the English board, and twice were they driven out with great loss. Downton the rear-admiral was crippled for life, and Cave, who commanded the Earl's ship, was mortally wounded by a shot through both legs. To make the hideous scene worse, fire was thrown about and the _Cinque Llagas_ caught and began to burn. A Franciscan friar, Antonio, was seen standing with a crucifix in his hand, encouraging the crew to commit themselves to the waves and God's mercy, rather than die in the flames, and a vast number plunged into the sea. It is said that the English boats made no attempt to save these unfortunates, but the English themselves were on fire and were probably busy putting their own ships in order. But the rear-admiral's boat picked up Nuno Velho and some others; Nuno had been Governor of Mozambique and had been only recently shipwrecked and rescued by the _Cinque Llagas_. There were also on board two Portuguese ladies of high birth, Doña Isabel Pereira and her beautiful daughter, Doña Luiza de Mello. They had been wrecked in the _Santo Alberto_, and had since travelled through Kaffraria on foot nearly a thousand miles. The young lady was travelling home to take possession of her entailed property at Evora. In the confusion and panic they could get no attention, and fear of something worse than death urged them to fasten themselves together with a Franciscan cord and leap into the sea. Their bodies, so bound together, were at length cast up on the shore of the island of Fayal. Nuno Velho and Braz Correa, captain of the _Nazareth_, were taken as prisoners to England, where the Earl treated them hospitably for a whole year. It was perhaps not wholly from kindly and unselfish motives, for in the end Nuno Velho paid three thousand cruzados for the ransom of both. As for the _Cinque Llagas_, she burned all day and all night, but "the next morning her powder, being sixty barrels, blew her abroad, so that most of the ship did swim in parts above the water."