hour and a half had sufficed to disperse the Ottoman right and to overpower the flagship in chief. When the fleet saw the Christian ensign at the peak of the Turkish _capitana_ they redoubled their efforts: Veniero, severely wounded, still fought with the Seraskier Pertev Pasha; the Turks fled, and Pertev took to the land. In half an hour more Don John's centre was completely victorious. Then a new danger arose: Ochiali, seeing that Doria was well away to sea, sharply doubled back with all the right wing, and bore down upon the exhausted centre. He rushed upon the _capitana_ of Malta, and massacred every soul on board. Dragut is avenged! Juan de Cardona hastened to the rescue, and of his five hundred soldiers but fifty escaped; on the _Fiorenza_ seventeen men alone remained alive; and other terrible losses were incurred in the furious encounter. Upon this the ingenious Doria perceived that he had outwitted only his own cause, and at last turned back. The Marquis de Santa Cruz was already upon the enemy; Don John was after him with twenty galleys; Ochiali was outnumbered, and after a brilliant effort, made off in all haste for Santa Maura, bearing with him the Standard of "the Religion" to be hung up in St. Sophia. The battle of Lepanto is fought and won: the Turks have been utterly vanquished.[49] Well might the good Pope cry, as the preacher cried in St. Stephen's a century later when Sobieski saved Vienna,[50] "_There was a man sent from GOD, whose name was JOHN_." The Turkish fleet was almost annihilate: one hundred and ninety galleys were captured, besides galleots, and fifteen more burnt or sunk; probably twenty thousand men had perished, including an appalling list of high dignitaries from all parts of the empire. The Christians lost seven thousand five hundred men, including many of the most illustrious houses of Italy and Spain. Cervantes, who commanded a company of soldiers on board the _Marquesa_, fortunately escaped with a wound in his left arm; and to many the Battle of Lepanto is familiar only from the magical pages of _Don Quixote_. Seventeen Venetian commanders were dead, and among them Vicenzo Quirini and the valiant, chivalrous, and venerable Proveditore Barbarigo. Sixty Knights of the diminished Order of St. John had given up the ghost. Twelve thousand Christian slaves were freed from the Ottoman galleys.