rdice of this Christian admiral.

The victory lay with Barbarossa. With a greatly inferior force
he had challenged Doria and attacked. Doria had not only declined
the challenge but fled back to Corfu. No wonder the Sultan ordered
the cities of his domain to be illuminated. Barbarossa's prizes
included two galleys and five nefs, but he, too, had failed in
an inexplicable fashion in drawing off from the assault on the
_Galleon of Venice_ at the end of the day's fighting. It is with
her, with the gallant Condalmiero and his men, that all the honor of
the day belongs. Nothing in the adventurous 16th century surpasses
their splendid, disciplined valor on this occasion.

The astonishing powers of resistance and the deadly effect of the
broadsides of the _Galleon of Venice_ displayed in a long and successful
fight against an entire fleet of galleys should have had the effect
of making a revolution in naval architecture fifty years before
that change actually occurred. But men of war of those days were
built after the models of Venetian architects, and the latter clung
doggedly to the galley. They overlooked the great defensive and
offensive powers of the galleon displayed in this story and saw
only the fact that she was becalmed and unable to move.

Doria's failure left conditions in the Mediterranean as bad as
ever. Barbarossa died at the age of ninety, but one of the last
acts of his life was to ransom a follower of his, Dragut, Pasha
of Tripoli, who had served under him at Prevesa and, having been
captured two years later, served four years as a galley slave on
the ship of Gian Andrea Doria, the grandnephew and heir of Andrea
Doria. Dragut soon assumed the leadership laid down by Barbarossa,
his master, fighting first the elder Doria and then his namesake
with great skill and audacity. For years the Knights of Malta had
been a thorn in the side of the Moslems who roamed the sea, and
in 1565 a gigantic effort was made by the Sultan, together with
his tributaries from the Barbary states, to wipe out this naval
stronghold. The siege that followed was distinguished by the most
reckless courage and the most desperate fighting on both sides. It
extended from May 18 to September 8, costing the Christians 8000
and the Moslems 30,000 lives. In the midst of the siege Dragut
himself was slain, and the conduct of the siege fell into less
capable hands. Finally the Turks withdrew.

The death of Soliman the Magnificent, in 1566, bro