With accuracy and precision the galleon played upon such vessels as remained within range, doing great execution.  But she was now to be subjected to an even severer test than the first headlong attack.  She had demonstrated to the Moslem leaders that here was no vessel to be carried by mere reckless valour; a disciplined and ordered offensive was the only plan which promised success; the Osmanli must use their brain as well as their courage if that tattered flag, rescued from the water, and nailed to the stump of the mast of the galleon, was ever to be torn down.  There was something daunting in the very aspect of the solid bulk of the huge Venetian, something weird in the manner in which her crew never showed, save only the steadfast figure of her captain immovable as a statue of bronze, where he stood on her shot-torn poop.

This Homeric conflict was a triumph of discipline and gunnery on the part of the Venetians; alert, accurate, and cool, the gunners of the galleon threw away none of their ammunition:  inspired by the heroic spirit of their captain, great was the honour which they did on this stricken field to the noble traditions of their forbears and the service to which they belonged.

The first attack had been most brilliantly repulsed, but this was only preliminary to a conflict which was to last all through the day; the Moslem galleys withdrew out of gunshot and re-formed; then a squadron of twenty advanced, delivered their fire, and retired; their place was then taken by a second squadron, which went through the same performance, and then came on a third.  In this manner the attack, which began one hour after noon, and which was continued until sunset, was conducted.  The galleon had thirteen men killed, and forty wounded; no doubt the slaughter would have been much greater had it not been for the enormous thickness of her sides and for the fact that the guns carried by the galleys were necessarily light.  Notwithstanding, the galleon suffered terribly, she was a mass of wreckage; twice fire had broken out on board of her, she was cumbered by fallen masts, battered almost out of recognition, but still Condalmiero and her gallant crew fought on imperturbably with no thought of surrender.  Covered with blood, wounded in the face and the right leg by flying splinters, her captain preserved his magnificent coolness, and his decimated crew responded nobly to his call.  At eventide the fire from the galleon was almost as deadly as it had been at the first onslaught, and many galleys of the Turks were only saved from sinking by the activity and bravery of their carpenters, who, slung over their sides in “boatswains’ chairs,” drove home huge plugs of wood with their mallets into the shot-holes made by the Venetian guns.