As the two fleets approached--the Christians wafted gently onward by a light breeze, the Ottomans plying their oars to the utmost--the Turkish commander, who like Don John sailed in the centre of his line, fired a gun. Don John acknowledged the challenge and returned the salute. A second shot elicited a second reply. The two armaments had approached near enough to enable each to distinguish the individual vessels of the other and to scan their various banners and insignia. The Turks advanced to battle shouting and screaming and making a great uproar with ineffectual musketry. The Christians preserved complete silence. At a certain signal a crucifix was raised aloft in every ship in the fleet. Don John of Austria, sheathed in complete armor, and standing in a conspicuous place on the prow of his ship, now knelt down to adore the sacred emblem, and to implore the blessing of God on the great enterprise which he was about to commence. Every man in the fleet followed his example and fell upon his knees. The soldier, poising his firelock, knelt at his post by the bulwarks, the gunner knelt with his lighted match beside his gun. The decks gleamed with prostrate men in mail. In each galley, erect and conspicuous among the martial throng, stood a Franciscan or a Dominican friar, a Theatine or a Jesuit, in his brown or black robe, holding a crucifix in one hand and sprinkling holy water with the other, while he pronounced a general absolution, and promised indulgence in this life, or pardon in the next, to the steadfast warriors who should quit them like men and fight the good fight of faith against infidel. In the night between October 6th and 7th, 1571, about the same hour that the Christian fleet weighed anchor at Cephalonia, the Turks had left their moorings in the harbor of Lepanto. While Don John, baffled by the winds and waves, was beating off the Curzolarian Isles, the Pacha was sailing down the gulf before a fair breeze. Every Turk on board the Sultan's fleet believed that he was about to assist in conveying the armament of the Christian powers to the Golden Horn, in obedience to the commands of the Padishah. The soldiers and sailors, lately recruited by large reenforcements, were many of them fresh from quarters on shore. Officers and men were in the highest spirits, eager for the battle which they knew to be at hand, and in which they supposed their success to be certain. For although Ali was well informed as to the position and movements of the fleet of the League, he was no less mistaken as to the strength of the Christians than the Christians were as to his own. He had been more successful in pouring fictions into the ear of Don John than in obtaining accurate intelligence for himself.