Page:The strange story book.djvu/126

 these strange events to various bishops and cardinals, who desired that it should instantly be taken down in writing, the time and place of the scene being carefully noted. They ordered further, that when sealed, the document should be deposited for safety in the house of a lawyer. This, it will be remembered, was on October 7, but the first news of the battle was not received in Rome till the 26th, when a messenger arrived from the Doge of Venice, Mocenigo, followed three or four days later by one from Don John himself. Then calculations were made of the difference of time between the longitude of Rome and that of the islands off the Greek coast where the battle was fought, with the result that it was proved that the vision of the Pope had occurred at the precise moment in which Don John had sprung, sword in hand, from his place in the centre of his galley to beat back the Turks who were swarming over the bulwarks.

The repelling of the attack had turned the scale in the fortunes of the day, and the power of the Turks over Christendom was broken for ever.