We are, however, anticipating. Don John passed down his own line in a light “fregata” giving a few words of exhortation and advice to each ship under his command. If the bastard brother of the King of Spain did not exhibit any large measure of ability as a leader on this occasion, he was perhaps none the less the right man in the right place, as he had about him so winning a way, he was so striking and gallant a figure, that the hearts of all under his command went out to him. The seamen and soldiers of the great armada greeted him with enthusiastic shouts of delight as he bade them remember in whose cause it was that they fought. The last of the Knights-errant must have made a brave show as he passed down that line four miles in length, the sun shining on his damascened armour, and his yellow curls streaming out from beneath his helmet.
Soon after sunrise the Turkish fleet was descried sailing towards the Christians, in such apparently overwhelming force that several of the Spanish commanders represented to Don John that it would be imprudent to risk a battle. To his honour be it recorded that he replied he had come out to fight the Turks and that the time for talk was now over. He then hoisted all his banners, and the executive signal for the combat to begin was given by displaying at his mainmast head the sacred banner blessed by the Pope. As this standard floated out upon the breeze there went up a great shout in unison from all that were under the command of Don John. The scene of the combat was that area of the Ionian Sea which is enclosed on the east by the coasts of Albania and Morea and on the west by the islands of Ithaca and Cephalonia, Just to the northward, at the entrance to the Gulf of Arta, sixteen hundred years before had been fought the battle of Actium between Antony and Octavius; the same spot had witnessed, in 1538, the memorable battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa.
From the point of view of the seaman, who is naturally anxious to discover the dispositions of their fleets made by the rival Commanders-in-Chief, Lepanto is an almost hopeless puzzle. As far as can be gathered, however, it was that the two armadas approached one another in what is known as “line ahead,” each ship being immediately astern of its next ahead in one long continuous line; and that, when they got within striking distance, these lines turned so that they formed “line abreast,” when each ship, having turned at right angles, simultaneously the line advances abreast, the ships forming it being broadside to broadside.