The chroniclers report that Duarte was under close watch, for fear he might order the ship to make a dart for Castile or France and avoid the justice awaiting him in Portugal.

Reaching Mozambique Island, they heard news from outgoing ships of the next India armada that Duarte's affairs back in Portugal were not as dire as he feared.

After rounding the Cape of Good Hope, Duarte ordered his ship to stop and replenish water stores at Table Bay (aguada de Saldanha), instructing his brother Luís to go on ahead, that he would catch up with him at Saint Helena.

Although it seems unlikely such a well-armed ship would fall so easily, it is worthwhile remembering she was also heavily laden with India goods and battered by the tempest and reportedly springing leaks, making her dangerously unseaworthy and vulnerable at the moment of the French attack.

However, it is also possible that an error was made in the chronicles and the positions were reversed, that the outgoing governor Duarte went on the larger Santa Catarina, his brother Luís on the S. Jorge.

While docked there, Duarte got wind of the king's sour mood and the fate that awaited him in Lisbon, so he smuggled the greater part of his private treasure off the ship into the care of a female cousin in Faro.

In the aftermath, Duarte de Menezes was called before the royal court at Almeirim, and after a brief interview with the king John III of Portugal, was promptly placed under arrest.