"It seems to me, gentlemen, since you have brought enough supplies to last the city several days, that my lord, the Grand Master, should make a gift for the sultan of many different kinds of foods, in order to make him lose any hope he has of taking us by hunger." All the great lords praised the old knight's advice, and the order was immediately given to send him four hundred hot loaves of bread straight from the oven, wine, honey and sugar sweetmeats, three turkeys, chickens and capons, honey, oil, and all the other things they had brought. When the sultan saw the present, he said to his men: "Damn this present and the traitor who sent it! This will bring the perdition of my honor, and will be my ruin." When it was nearly midnight, and very dark, the sailor had everything ready to set the captain's ship on fire, and he did it this way: The sailor had fixed a very strong capstan into the ground near the sea. Then he put a thick rope in a boat along with a hemp cord as thick as a man's finger. He got into the boat, and two men rowed for him. When they were so near the ship that they could hear the men on the poop deck talking, they stopped rowing. He took off all his clothes and tied a cord around his waist. Then he took a very sharp knife so that he could cut any cords he needed to, and he put it in back of him so it wouldn't bother him when he swam. He attached one end of the cord to the knife sheath, and he told the men in the boat to keep feeding him line. When everything was ready he slipped into the water, and swam until he was so close to the ship that he could hear the men on watch talking. Then he swam underwater so that no one would see him, and he reached the rudder. He looped the cord through an iron ring under the rudder, and swam underwater back to his boat. He took the end of the cord and tied it to one end of the thick rope and he held it up and greased it thoroughly. Then he took a chunk of grease for the bar, to let it slide through easily and noiselessly. Finally he gave orders to the men, and swam back to the ship and greased the bar. The men on the boat stuck an iron pin through the cord and pulled until the pin caught on the ring. And the sailor knew that the other end of the rope was in the boat. When he thought it was time, they rowed back to land. He tied one end of the rope to the capstan, and the other end was tied to a large boat, a type of whaling boat, that had been filled with firewood and candlewood, all soaked with oil so it would burn well.