then the
rivalries of the different admirals tended rather to war between the
contingents than an attack upon the enemy's fleet. While the
Christians were wrangling, and Doria was displaying the same Fabian
caution that had led his grand-uncle to lose the battle of Prevesa,
Pi[=a]li Pasha, wholly regardless of danger, had bared his galleys
almost entirely of soldiers, in order to aid Lala Mustafa in the final
assault on Nicosia. Had the allied fleets attacked him on the 8th or
9th of September it is doubtful whether a single Turkish galley could
have shown fight. But Colonna and Doria wasted their time in wrangling
and discussing, while the foe lay powerless at their feet. Finally
they sailed back to Sicily, for fear of bad weather. Such were the
admirals who furnished the gibes of Ochiali and his brother Corsairs.
Famagusta surrendered August 4, 1571, and despite the promise of life
and liberty, the garrison was massacred and the Venetian commander,
Bragadino, cruelly burnt to death. Cyprus became a Turkish possession
thenceforward to this day.

Meanwhile, the Turkish and Barbary fleets, commanded by 'Ali Pasha,
the successor of Pi[=a]li, and Ochiali, ravaged Crete and other
islands, and coasting up the Adriatic, worked their will upon every
town or village it suited their pleasure to attack. Thousands of
prisoners, and stores and booty of every description rewarded their
industry. At length, in September, they anchored in the Gulf of
Lepanto. They had heard that the united Christian fleets were on the
move, and nothing would suit the victors of Cyprus better than a round
encounter with the enemy. Flushed with success, they had no fear for
the issue.

Many a Christian fleet had gathered its members together before then
in the waters of the Adriatic. The great battle off Prevesa was in the
memory of many an old sailor as the galleys came to the rendezvous in
the autumn of 1571. But there was an essential difference between then
and now. Prevesa was lost by divided counsels; at Lepanto there was
but one commander-in-chief. Pope Pius V. had laboured unceasingly at
the task of uniting the Allies and smoothing away jealousies, and he
had succeeded in drawing the navies of Southern Europe on to another
year's campaign; then, warned by what he had learned of the wranglings
off Cyprus, he exerted his prerogative as Vicar of God, and named as
the sole commander-in-chief of the whole fleet, Don John of Austria.

[Illustrati