The advance of the season, the want of provisions, the number of their wounded, and the express orders of king Philip, prevented the victorious fleet from following up its victory; and don John returned to Messina on the 31st of October. The troops were distributed in various quarters, and the tercio of Moncada was posted in the south of Sicily. Cervantes himself, sick and wounded, remained in the hospital at Messina for at least six months. Don John of Austria had shown a lively interest in his fate on the morning succeeding to the battle, and did not forget him during his long confinement. The industrious Viardôt has discovered mention of various small sums given him by the pay office (pagaduria) of the fleet, under the dates of the 15th and 25th of January, and the 9th and 17th of March, 1572. When at last he recovered, an order was addressed by the generalissimo, on the 29th of April, to the pay-masters, that the soldier Cervantes should receive the high pay of four crowns per month, and be passed into a company of the tercio of Figueroa. [Sidenote: 1572. Ætat. 25.] The campaign of the following year was a failure. Of the three allied powers, the pope was dead, the Venetians grown cold,--the Spaniards alone remained to prosecute the war. Marco Antonio Colonna set sail on the 6th of June for the Archipelago, with a part of the allied fleet; and, among others, the thirty-six galleys of the marquis of Santa Cruz, on board of which was embarked the regiment of Figueroa, in which Cervantes served. Don John sailed on the 9th of August following; but the only enterprise they attempted was an unsuccessful assault on the castle of Navarino; thus the account given of this disastrous campaign in the story of the captive in "Don Quixote" was related by Cervantes as an eye-witness. [Sidenote: 1573. Ætat. 26.] During the following year the Venetians signed a peace with Selim; and the league being broken up, Philip was obliged to renounce all direct attack upon the Ottoman power; but having assembled a large force, he determined to employ it on a descent on Algiers or Tunis. Since the time of Charles V., the Spaniards possessed Goletta, a fortress near Tunis. Having, therefore, disembarked his troops, he sent the marquis de Santa Cruz to possess himself of Tunis, which might easily have been done; but Philip, jealous of the views of his brother, recalled him in haste from Africa. Feeble garrisons were left in Goletta, which the Turks took by assault the same year.