Page:Don Quixote (Cervantes, Ormsby) Volume 1.djvu/34

 xxiv regiment, but at that time forming a part of the command of Marc Antony Colonna. What impelled him to this step we know not, whether it was distaste for the career before him, or purely military enthusiasm. It may well have been the latter, for it was a stirring time; the events, however, which led to the alliance between Spain, Venice, and the Pope, against the common enemy, the Porte, and to the victory of the combined fleets at Lepanto, belong rather to the history of Europe than to the life of Cervantes. He was one of those that sailed from Messina, in September 1571, under the command of Don John of Austria; but on the morning of the 7th of October, when the Turkish fleet was sighted, he was lying below ill with fever. At the news that the enemy was in sight he rose, and, in spite of the remonstrances of his comrades and superiors, insisted on taking his post, saying he preferred death in the service of God and the King to health. His galley, the Marquesa, was in the thick of the fight, and before it was over he had received three gunshot wounds, two in the breast and one in the left hand or arm. On the morning after the battle, according to Navarrete, he had an interview with the commander-in-chief, Don John, who was making a personal inspection of the wounded, one result of which was an addition of three crowns to his pay, and another, apparently, the friendship of his general. Strada says of Don John that he knew personally every soldier under his command, but at any rate it was as much for his friendly bearing and solicitude for their comfort and well-being as for his abilities and gallantry in the field that he was beloved by his men, and it is easy to conceive that he should have taken a special interest in the case of Cervantes, who, it may be observed, was exactly his own age, and curiously enough—though it is not very likely Don John was aware of the fact—his kinsman in a remote degree, inasmuch as the mother of Ferdinand of Aragon was a descendant of Nuño Alfonso above mentioned.

How severely Cervantes was wounded may be inferred from the fact, that with youth, a vigorous frame, and as cheerful and buoyant a temperament as ever invalid had, he was seven months in hospital at Messina before he was discharged. He came out with his left hand permanently disabled; he had lost the use of it, as Mercury told him in the "Viaje del Parnaso," for the greater glory of the right. This, however, did not absolutely unfit him for service, and in April 1572 he