i and destroyed in detail, but the situation was so critical
that he took the risk and succeeded in slipping past the corsair
undiscovered. In permitting this escape, and in fact in allowing
all the other units of the Christian fleet to assemble at Messina,
Ali missed a golden opportunity to destroy the whole force before
it ever collected. Instead, he continued his ravages on the coasts
of the Adriatic, bent only on plunder. He carried his raids almost
to the lagoons of Venice itself, and indeed might have attacked
the city had he not been hampered by a shortage of men.

Although the Turks were having their own way, unopposed, and the
situation was growing daily more critical, the Christian fleet was
slow in assembling. For a whole month Veniero waited in Messina
for the arrival of Don Juan and the Spanish squadrons. Philip,
apparently, used one pretext after another to delay the prince,
and once on his way Don Juan had to tarry at every stage of the
journey to witness ceremonial fetes held in his honor. Philip acted
in good faith as far as his preparations went, but he wanted to
save his galleys for use against the Moors of the Barbary coast,
which was nearer the ports of Spain, and was indifferent to the
outcome of the quarrel between Venice and the Porte. Undoubtedly
Doria and the other Spanish officers were fully informed of their
royal master's desires in this expedition as in the one of the
year before. They were to avoid battle if they could.

On August 25 Don Juan arrived at Messina and was joyously received
by the city and the fleet. Nevertheless, it was the 12th of September
before the decision was finally reached to seek out the Turkish
fleet and offer battle. Fortunately Don Juan was a high-spirited
youth who shared none of his brother's half-heartedness; he went
to work to organize the discordant elements under his command into
as much of a unit as he could, and to imbue them with the idea of
aggressive action. In this spirit he was seconded by thousands
of young nobles and soldiers of fortune from Spain and Italy, who
had flocked to his standard like the knight errants of the age of
chivalry, burning to distinguish themselves against the infidel.
Among these, oddly enough, was a young Spaniard, Cervantes, who
was destined in later years to laugh chivalry out of Europe by
his immortal "Don Quixote."

In order to knit together the three elements, Spanish, Venetian,
and Papal, Don Juan so distributed the