Calmness in the presence of danger had always been one of D. John of Austria's great qualities, and it did not fail him in this crisis. He refrained from telling anyone of the fears and anxieties that Cecco Pizano's information had inspired in him, and without wasting a second he at once began to take measures with that intelligence and orderly activity required by the art of war, seeing and taking in everything at a glance, making his arrangements without hurry or confusion.
He ordered that a little rowing and sailing galley, employed to transmit orders, should come alongside of the "Real," and he embarked in her with Juan de Soto and D. Luis de Córdoba, to visit, one by one, all the galleys of the centre division and of the right wing; those of the left he gave over to his lieutenant the Knight Commander, Luis de Requesens.
In all the galleys D. John gave orders, the forethought and prudence of which could be appreciated later. He ordered that in all the galleys the high peaks should be cut off, to ensure the more effectual working of the forward guns.
He made them take off the chains and give arms to those galley slaves who were condemned to row for ordinary offences, promising them pardon if they gave a good account of themselves in the fight. These poor creatures wept and embraced the boatswains who came to give them arms, swearing to die, as, in truth, most of them did, for the Faith, the King, and D. John of Austria. He also ordered on deck the best food in the holds, and leather bottles of wine to be divided among the crews, and then went among them to speak to them and to encourage them.
D. John went unarmed, with an ivory crucifix in his hand, that he afterwards gave to his confessor Fr. Miguel Servia, which existed in the convent of Jesus, outside the walls of Palma in Majorca until 1835. His words were not polished nor his arguments intricate; he only told them that they were fighting for the faith, and that there was no heaven for cowards. But he said it all so earnestly and courteously, and his declarations and promises so evidently came from his heart, that they filled all with enthusiasm and the wish to be brave, as if he were filling them with some of his own heroism.
He gave medals to some, money to others, to others scapularies and rosaries, and, when he had no more to give, he bestowed his hat on one and divided his gloves between two more. And when a Captain offered the galley slave who had received it fifty ducats for one of the gloves, the man promptly refused, and stuck it in his hat as if it had been the finest plume.
The two fleets came face to face at eleven o'clock in the morning, scarcely a league dividing them. Then in a moment Ali Pasha could understand the extent of his error, seeing ship after ship that he had not counted on coming up the narrow channel of Oxia, and Marco Antonio Arrozo narrates that, turning round to the Christian captives who were chained to the benches, he said to them, deadly pale, "Brothers! Do what is your duty in return for the good treatment I have given you. If I am victorious, I promise you liberty, and if to-day is your day, God gives it to you."
Then the crafty Aluch Ali proposed to tack so as to bring the Christian fleet under the fire of the entrance of the gulf; but the proud Ottoman leader answered that never should the galleys of the Padisha, under his command, offer even an appearance of flight. Meanwhile the two fleets were man?uvring to form up for battle, the Ottoman one in the open sea, light and favoured by the wind, the Christian one heavy, and shut in by visible and invisible rocks which there surround the Curzolari islands, and hampered by the contrary wind. They spread out their left wing to the coast, getting quite close when the sounding allowed it, to prevent the Turkish galleys passing and attacking them from the rear. It was formed of fifty-three galleys, under Agostino Barbarigo, whose galley went first, as guide on the land side, the guide of the other side was Marco Quirini, with Venice's third flagship. The right wing, on the other hand, went out to sea; it consisted of fifty-six galleys, commanded and guided from the extreme right by Gian Andrea Doria, whose flagship had a globe of glass as a lantern, with gilded hoops; the left was guided by D. Juan de Cardona, with the flagship of Sicily.
Between the two wings, forming the centre division, were sixty-two galleys; in the middle the "Real" of D. John of Austria, flanked on each side by the flagships of the Captains Marco Antonio Colonna and Sebastian Veniero, and their stern guarded by D. John's "Patrona" and the ship of the Knight Commander D. Luis de Requesens, who did not wish to be separated for an instant from the Generalissimo; the two extremes of the centre division were led, on the left by the flagship of Malta, commanded by the Prior of Messina, Fr. Pietro Gustiniani. Behind the centre division and at a convenient distance were the thirty galleys in reserve, commanded by the Marqués de Santa Cruz. There was not more than the space necessary for man?uvring between ship and ship, and the line............