ustria defended
the bulwarks of his ships that he was able to inform Philip II that not
a Turk had set foot upon a single deck belonging to his majesty.

Such were some of the chief causes of the success of the arms of the
League. In the sixteenth century, in a vast concourse of men of the
South, hot from battle and largely leavened with priests and friars, it
was natural that the victory should be by many ascribed to a more
mysterious agency. In the opinion of these persons the Almighty had
evidently been fighting on the side of the Pope and the Cross, although
they would perhaps have demurred to the logical deduction from that
opinion that at Cyprus he had steadily adhered to the drunken Sultan and
the Crescent. It was not only in the victory that they saw the finger of
Omnipotence, but in many accidents and incidents of the day. The wind,
which wafted the Turks swiftly to destruction, changed at the precise
moment when it was needed to aid the onset of the Christians. The
boisterous sea also sank to smoothness in the special interest of the
League. Of the clergy and friars who ministered on the Spanish decks to
the wounded and dying, although some of them were struck, not one was
killed. The Venetians were less fortunate, having four chaplains killed
and three wounded; and the Pope likewise lost one of his friars, who
died of his wounds soon after the battle. The churchmen exposed
themselves as freely as the combatants, whom they encouraged from
conspicuous posts either on deck or in the rigging, and sometimes by
example as well as precept. A Spanish Capuchin, an old soldier, had tied
his crucifix to a halbert, and, crying that Christ would fight for his
faith, led the boarders of his galley over the bulwarks of her
antagonist; after using his weapon manfully, he returned victorious and
untouched.

An Italian priest, with a great gilded crucifix in one hand and a sword
in another, stood cheering on his spiritual sons, unharmed in the
fiercest centre of the arrowy sleet and iron hail. A Roman Capuchin,
finding his flock getting the worst of it, seized a boat-hook, and,
pulling his peaked hood over his face, rushed into the fray, laid about
him until he had slain seven Turks and driven the rest from the deck,
and lived to call a smile to the thin lips of Pius V by telling the
story of his prowess. The green banner of Mecca, brought from the
Prophet's tomb, and unfurled from the main-top of Ali, was riddled with
shot,