[Illustration: LEPANTO 2. BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE (NOON, OCT 7 1571)] Meanwhile there had been close and deadly fighting in the centre. The main squadron of the Turks had, like their right division, suffered from the fire of the advanced galleasses. Several shots had struck the huge galley that flew the flag of the Capitan-Pasha, Ali, a white pennon sent from Mecca, embroidered in gold with verses of the Koran. Ali steered straight for the centre of the Christian line, where the group of large galleys, the "Reale" with the embroidered standard of the Holy League, Colonna's ship with its ensign of the Papal Keys, and Veniero's with the Lion-flag of St. Mark, told him he was striking at the heart of the confederacy. He chose Don Juan's "Reale" for his adversary, relying on the Seraskier Pertev Pasha, and the Pasha of Mitylene on his left and right, to support him by attacking the other two flagships. Ali held the fire of his bow-guns till he was within a short musket-shot of his enemy, and then fired at point-blank. One of his cannon-balls crashed through the bow barrier of the "Reale," and raked the rowers' benches, killing several oarsmen. As the guns of the "Reale" thundered out their reply, the bow of the Turkish flagship, towering over the forecastle of Don Juan's vessel, came through the smoke-cloud and struck the Spanish ship stem to stem with a grinding crash and a splintering of timber, throwing down many of the crew. The Turkish bow dug deep into the Spanish ship, and in the confusion of the collision it was thought for a moment she was sinking, but a forward bulkhead kept her afloat. Ali's ship rebounded from the shock, then glided alongside the "Reale" with much mutual smashing of oars. The two ships grappled, and the hand-to-hand fight began. At the same time Pertev Pasha grappled Veniero's flagship, and another Turkish galley, commanded by Ali's two sons, forced its way through the line and engaged the two galleys that lay astern of the flagship. Then the Pasha of Mitylene closed upon Colonna's ship, and all along the centre the galleys came dashing together. The crash of broken oars, the rattling explosions of arquebuses and grenades, the war-notes of the Christian trumpets and the Turkish drums, the clash of swords, the shouts and yells of the combatants, rose in a deafening din. Froissart wrote in an earlier day that sea-fights were always murderous. This last great battle of the medieval navies had the character of its predecessors. In this fight at close quarters on the narrow space afforded by the galleys' decks there was no question of surrender on either side, no thought but of which could strike the hardest and kill the most. Nor could men, striving hand to hand in the confusion of the floating mêlée, know anything of what was being done beyond their limited range of view, so that even the admirals became for the moment only leaders of small groups of fighting-men. On the poop and forecastle of the