In these packed and
crowded vessels the misery and discomfort of their crews may be imagined.
On the morning of the 26th, however, the west wind dropped, and a light
wind sprang up from the northward.
The position at this time was one of surpassing interest. Here at long last
the two most renowned sea-captains of the time were face to face. Each was
aware that his antagonist was worthy of his steel, also that great issues,
political and national, hung upon this conflict; which was no mere affair
of outposts, but a struggle to the death as to whether the Crescent or the
Cross was in time to come to be supreme in the tideless sea. And yet--such
is the irony of fate--this battle proved indecisive, and it was not until
thirty years later, at the battle of Lepanto, that this momentous question
was set at rest for a time.
Would Doria, greatly daring, go in and risk all in attacking a fortified
position; or would Barbarossa make a sally and fight it out to the death on
the element on which he was so supremely at home?
But Doria had no mind to attack a fleet anchored under the guns of a
fortress; Barbarossa would not risk all in an encounter with a foe
possessed of great numerical superiority without orders from
Constantinople. On Doria's side nothing but a disembarkation and a
land-attack would offer a fair security for success, Kheyr-ed-Din, who
held, as we have said, the interior position, was well aware of this fact,
and in this supreme moment of his career was not disposed to give away any
advantage.
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