While Cervantes was in Rome, a league was forming by Spain, Venice and the Holy See against the Sultan Selim: war was in sight, and every high-spirited young Spaniard in Italy must have felt that his place was in the ranks. It has been thought that Cervantes served as a supernumerary before he joined Acquaviva’s household; but we do not reach solid ground till 1571 when Cervantes is discovered as a soldier in a company commanded by Diego de Urbina, ‘a famous captain of Guadalajara,’ as the Captive in _Don Quixote_ called him thirty-four years later. Urbina’s company belonged to the celebrated _tercio_ of Miguel de Moncada, and in September 1571 it was embarked at Messina on the _Marquesa_, one of the galleys under the command of Don John of Austria. At dawn on Sunday, October 7, Don John’s armada lay off the Curzolarian Islands when two sail were sighted on the horizon, and soon afterwards the Turkish fleet followed. Cervantes was ill with fever, but refused to listen to his comrades who begged him to stay below: death in the service of God and the King, he said, was preferable to remaining under cover. The _Marquesa_ was in the hottest of the fight at Lepanto, and when the battle was won Cervantes had received three wounds, two in the chest, and one in the left hand. Like most old soldiers, he loved to fight his battles over again, and, to judge from his writings, he was at least as proud of having been at Lepanto as of creating Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. He was in hospital for seven months at Messina, received an increase of pay, and returned to duty in April 1572. This throws light upon a personal matter. Current likenesses of Cervantes, all imaginary and most of them mere variants of the portrait contrived in the eighteenth century by William Kent, usually represent him as having lost an arm. This is manifestly wrong: a one-armed private would have been discharged as not worth his pay and rations. Cervantes was appointed to Manuel Ponce de León’s company in the _tercio_ of Lope de Figueroa—the vehement martinet who appears in Calderón’s _Alcalde de Zalamea_—and took part in three campaigns; he was present at the fiasco of Navarino in 1572, at the occupation of Tunis in 1573, and at the attempted relief of the Goletta in 1574. He had already done garrison duty in Genoa and Sardinia, and was now stationed successively at Palermo and Naples. It was clear that there was to be no more fighting for a while, and, as there was no opening for Cervantes in Italy, he determined to seek promotion in Spain. Don John of Austria recommended him for a company in one of the regiments then being raised for Italy, and laid stress upon his ‘merits and services,’ and a similar recommendation was made by the Duke of Sesa, Viceroy of Sicily. These flattering credentials and testimonials were destined to cause much embarrassment and suffering to the bearer; but they encouraged him to make for Spain with a confident heart.