As the two armaments now advanced, each in full view of the other, the sea was somewhat high, and the wind, blowing freshly from the east, was in the teeth of the Christians. But in the course of the morning the waves of the gulf fell to a glassy smoothness, and the breeze shifted to the west, a change fortunate for the sailors of the League, which their spiritual teachers did not fail to declare a special interposition of God in behalf of the fleet which carried the flag of his vicar upon earth. At the sound of the signal gun each captain began to prepare his ship for action. By order of Don John of Austria the sharp peaks of the galleys, the spurs (_espolones_) as they were called, had been cut off, it being thought expedient to sacrifice those weapons of offence, which were somewhat uncertain in their operation, to insure the more effectual working of the guns on the forecastle and gangway; and the bulwarks had been strengthened, and heightened by means of boarding-nettings. In some vessels the rowers' benches were removed or planked over, to give more space and scope to the soldiers. Throughout the fleet the Christian slaves had their fetters knocked off and were furnished with arms, which they were encouraged to use valiantly by promises of freedom and rewards. Of the Moslem slaves, on the contrary, the chains which secured them to their places were carefully examined, and their rivets secured; and they were, besides, fitted with handcuffs, to disable them from using their hands for any purpose but tugging on the oar. The arquebusier, the musketeer, and the bombardier looked carefully to the state of their weapons, ammunition, and equipments; the sailor sharpened his pike and cutlass; the officer put on his strongest casque and his best-wrought cuirass; the stewards placed supplies of bread and wine in convenient places, ready to the hands of the combatants; and the surgeons prepared their instruments and bandages, and spread tables in dark and shaded nooks, for the use of the wounded.