y troubled at the captain's appropriation of the
praise due to himself. There had not, from the time he sailed, been any
cordiality between Francis and the other officers. These had been
selected for the position solely from family influence, and none of
them were acquainted with the working of a ship.

In those days, not only in Venice but in other countries, naval battles
were fought by soldiers rather than sailors. Nobles and knights, with
their retainers, embarked on board a ship for the purpose of fighting,
and of fighting only, the management of the vessel being carried on
entirely by sailors under their own officers. Thus, neither the
commander of the force on board the galley, nor any of his officers,
with the exception of Francis, knew anything whatever about the
management of the ship, nor were capable of giving orders to the crew.
Among the latter were some who had sailed with Francis in his first two
voyages, and these gave so excellent a report of him to the rest, that
they were from the first ready to obey his orders as promptly as those
of their own sub-officer.

Francis concerned himself but little with the ill will that was shown
him by the officers. He knew that it arose from jealousy, not only of
the promotion he, a foreigner and a junior in years, had received over
them, but of the fact that he had already received the thanks of the
republic for the services he had rendered, and stood high in the favour
of the admiral, who never lost an opportunity of showing the interest
he had in him. Had the hostility shown itself in any offensive degree
Francis would at once have resented it; but Matteo, and some of those
on board, who had been his comrades in the fencing rooms, had given
such reports of his powers with his weapons, that even those most
opposed to him thought it prudent to observe a demeanour of outward
politeness towards him.

For three months the search for the Genoese fleet was ineffectual. A
trip had been made along the coast of Apulia, and the fleet had
returned to Pola with a large convoy of merchant ships loaded with
grain, when on the 7th of May Doria appeared off the port, with
twenty-five sail.

But Pisani was now by no means anxious to fight. Zeno was away with a
portion of the fleet, and although he had received reinforcements, he
numbered but twenty-one vessels, and a number of his men were laid up
with sickness. The admiral, however, was not free to follow out the
dictates of h