view to
proving his son's legitimacy and untainted Christian descent.

If it is difficult to say precisely when Cervantes was in Acquaviva's
service, it is no less difficult to say when he left it to join the
regular army. There is evidence, more or less satisfactory, that his
enlistment took place in 1570; in 1571 he was serving as a private in
the company commanded by Captain Diego de Urbina which formed part of
Miguel de Moncada's famous regiment, and on the 16th of September he
sailed from Messina on board the "Marquesa," which formed part of the
armada under Don John of Austria. At the battle of Lepanto (October 7,
1571) the "Marquesa" was in the thickest of the conflict. As the fleet
came into action Cervantes lay below, ill with fever; but, despite the
remonstrances of his comrades, he vehemently insisted on rising to take
his share in the fighting, and was posted with twelve men under him in a
boat by the galley's side. He received three gunshot wounds, two in the
chest, and one which permanently maimed his right hand--"for the greater
glory of the right," in his own phrase. On the 30th of October the fleet
returned to Messina, where Cervantes went into hospital, and during his
convalescence received grants-in-aid amounting to eighty-two ducats. On
the 29th of April 1572 he was transferred to Captain Manuel Ponce de
Leon's company in Lope de Figueroa's regiment; he shared in the
indecisive naval engagement off Navarino on the 7th of October 1572, in
the capture of Tunis on the 10th of October 1573, and in the
unsuccessful expedition to relieve the Goletta in the autumn of 1574.
The rest of his military service was spent in garrison at Palermo and
Naples, and shortly after the arrival of Don John at Naples on the 18th
of June 1575, Cervantes was granted leave to return to Spain; he
received a recommendatory letter from Don John to Philip II., and a
similar testimonial from the duke de Sessa, viceroy of Sicily. Armed
with these credentials, Cervantes embarked on the "Sol" to push his
claim for promotion in Spain.

On the 26th of September 1575, near Les Trois Maries off the coast of
Marseilles, the "Sol" and its companion ships the "Mendoza" and the
"Higuera" encountered a squadron of Barbary corsairs under Arnaut Mami;
Cervantes, his brother Rodrigo and other Spaniards were captured, and
were taken as prisoners to Algiers. Cervantes became the slave of a
Greek renegade named Dali Mami, and, as the letters found