A faith thus lively, answered the hopes which the saint had conceived of the faithful of Amboyna. He compared them sometimes to the primitive Christians; and believed their constancy was of proof against the cruelty of tyrants. Neither was he deceived in the judgment he made of them; and they shewed themselves, when the Javeses, provoked by their renouncing the law of Mahomet, came to invade their island. While the Saracen army destroyed the country, six hundred Christians retired into a castle, where they were presently besieged. Though they were to fear all things from the fury of the barbarians, yet what they only apprehended was, that those enemies of Jesus Christ might exercise their malice against a cross which was raised in the midst of all the castle, and which Father Xavier had set up with his own hands. To preserve it, therefore, inviolable from their attempts, they wrapt it up in cloth of gold, and buried it in the bottom of the ditch. After they had thus secured their treasure, they opened the gate to the unbelievers, who, knowing what had been done by them, ran immediately in search of the cross, to revenge upon it the contempt which had been shown to Mahomet. But not being able to find it, they turned all their fury upon those who had concealed it, and who would not discover where it was. Death seemed to have been the least part of what they suffered. The Mahometan soldiers cut off one man's leg, another's arm, tore out this man's eyes, and the other's tongue. So the Christians died by degrees, and by a slow destruction, but without drawing one sigh, or casting out a groan, or shewing the least apprehension; so strongly were they supported in their souls by the all-powerful grace of Jesus Christ, for whom they suffered. Xavier at length parted from Amboyna; and probably it was then, if we consider the sequel of his life, that he had the opportunity of making the voyage of Macassar. For though it be not certainly known at what time he visited that great island, nor the fruit which his labours there produced, it is undoubted that he has been there; and, in confirmation of it, we have, in the process of his canonization, the juridical testimony of a Portuguese lady of Malacca, called Jane Melo, who had many times heard from the princess Eleonar, daughter to the king of Macassar, that the holy apostle had baptized the king her father, the prince her brother, and a great number of their subjects. But at whatsoever time he made this voyage, he returned to Malacca, in the month of July, in the year 1547. BOOK IV.