The first attack had been most brilliantly repulsed, but this was only
preliminary to a conflict which was to last all through the day; the Moslem
galleys withdrew out of gunshot and re-formed; then a squadron of twenty
advanced, delivered their fire, and retired; their place was then taken by
a second squadron, which went through the same performance, and then came
on a third. In this manner the attack, which began one hour after noon, and
which was continued until sunset, was conducted. The galleon had thirteen
men killed, and forty wounded; no doubt the slaughter would have been much
greater had it not been for the enormous thickness of her sides and for the
fact that the guns carried by the galleys were necessarily light.
Notwithstanding, the galleon suffered terribly, she was a mass of wreckage;
twice fire had broken out on board of her, she was cumbered by fallen
masts, battered almost out of recognition, but still Condalmiero and her
gallant crew fought on imperturbably with no thought of surrender. Covered
with blood, wounded in the face and the right leg by flying splinters, her
captain preserved his magnificent coolness, and his decimated crew
responded nobly to his call. At eventide the fire from the galleon was
almost as deadly as it had been at the first onslaught, and many galleys of
the Turks were only saved from sinking by the activity and bravery of their
carpenters, who, slung over their sides in "boatswains' chairs," drove home
huge plugs of wood with their mallets into the shot-holes made by the
Venetian guns.
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