He then had the skin stuffed with
straw, and, with this ghastly trophy nailed to the prow of his galley,
returned in triumph to Constantinople. Bragadino, the defender of
Famagusta, did not die in vain; his terrible fate excited such a passion of
anger in the whole of the armada of Don John that each individual of which
it was composed felt that the sacrifice of his own life would be but a
small thing if it only led to the destruction of such fiends as those
against whom they were arrayed.
[Illustration: DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA.]
Lepanto was a magnificent triumph for the arms of Christendom, and taught a
much-needed lesson to Europe that the Ottoman Turk was not invincible upon
the sea; it was not, however, an interesting battle from the point of view
of the student of war and its combinations. Of all the high officers in
command on that memorable day there was only one who displayed real
generalship and a proper appreciation of the tactical necessities of the
situation; that officer was Ali Basha, the leader of the Sea-wolves. The
account of the battle is somewhat obscured by the fact that on the side of
the Moslems the name of the Ottoman Commander-in-Chief was also "Ali"; in
order to avoid confusion in this narration, we shall allude to the Basha of
Algiers by the name given to him by the Christians, "Occhiali."
It was on Sunday, October 7th, 1571, that the Christian fleet weighed
anchor from Cephalonia and stood southwards along the Albanian coast, which
is here fringed with rocky islets.
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