he Oxia Channel to the Bay of Petala. The
prizes were taken in tow. Sails were set. Weary men tugged at the oar,
knights and nobles taking their places among them. As the October night
deepened into darkness, amid driving rain and roaring wind-squalls, the
fleet anchored in the sheltered bay.

The gale that swept the Adriatic was a warning that the season for active
operations was drawing to a close, and the admirals reluctantly decided
that no more could be done till next spring. The swiftest ships were sent
off to carry the good news of Lepanto to Rome and Messina, Venice and
Genoa, Naples and Barcelona. The fleet returned in triumph to Messina, and
entered the port trailing the captured Turkish standards in the water
astern of the ships that had taken them, while pealing bells and saluting
cannon greeted the victors.

Lepanto worthily closed the long history of the oar-driven navies. The
galleasses, with their tall masts and great sails, and their bristling
batteries of cannon, which lay in front of Don Juan's battle line,
represented the new type of ship that was soon to alter the whole aspect of
naval war. So quickly came the change that men who had fought at Lepanto
were present, only seventeen years later, at another world-famed battle
that was fought under sail, the defeat of King Philip's "Grand Armada" in
the Narrow Seas of the North.

[Illustration: LEPANTO 5. FLIGHT OF ULUGH ALI--ALLIED FLEET
FORMING UP WITH CAPTURED PRIZES AT CLOSE OF BATTLE (ABOUT 4 P.M.)]

CHAPTER VI

THE GREAT ARMADA

1588

"Attend, all ye who list to hear
Our glorious England's praise.
I sing of the thrice famous deeds
She wrought in ancient days,
When that great fleet 'Invincible'
Against her bore in vain
The richest spoils of Mexico,
The bravest hearts of Spain."

Thus Macaulay begins his stirring ballad of the Armada. The lines have
helped to perpetuate a popular error--one of the many connected with the
story as it is generally told in our English histories. It somehow became
the fashion at a very early date to speak of the defeat of the so-called
"Invincible Armada" of Spain. But the Spaniards never gave their fleet such
a name. In the contemporary histories and in Spanish official documents it
is more modestly and truthfully spoken of as the "Gran Armada"--"the great
armed force." And, by the way, our very use of the word "armada" is based
on popular