At the hour when the sun dipped below the horizon all the Turkish fleet seemed assembled to assault the colossus which so long had resisted their attack; there was a pause in the combat, and the firing died down.  Condalmiero and his men braced themselves for the assault which they felt to be inevitable:  for now the darkness was swiftly coming, in which they could no longer see to shoot, and under cover of which their numerous foes could assail them by boarding in comparative safety.  Now the moment had come for the last act in this terrible drama of the sea.  They had held their own at long odds throughout the whole of a hot September day, and as the level beams of the setting sun shone on their shattered ship they were prepared to die, fighting to the last man for the honour of Venice and the glory of St. Mark.

Stiff and worn, wearied almost to the breaking strain, there was no man on board who even dreamt of surrender; all the guns were charged to the muzzle with bullets and broken stone, the artillerists match in hand stood grimly awaiting the order to fire, straining their eyes and their ears in the gathering darkness; in a few minutes at most they knew that the fate of the Galleon of Venice must be decided.

On board his galley, decorated for this occasion with scarlet banners, Barbarossa himself directed the assaulting line.  Never before when the battle was joined had the gallant corsair been known to draw back; and yet on this occasion he not only hesitated but actually hauled off.  The Venetians saw to their amazement that the expected attack was not to be pushed home; for Barbarossa and his captains fell upon some lesser vessels:  the Galleon of Venice was victorious.

Meanwhile Doria was displaying his mastery of tactics when it was hard fighting that was wanted; he pretended that he wished to draw the Ottoman fleet into the high seas in order that he might destroy their galleys by means of the broadsides of his nefs; consequently he executed useless parade movements when he should by all the rules of warfare have closed with his enemy who was in distinctly inferior force; as he had a fair wind there is only one conclusion to be drawn, and that is that he did not want to fight.

His manoeuvres certainly mystified the Turks, who viewed his tactics with mistrust, thinking them the outset of some deeply laid scheme; it never entered into their calculations for one moment that the great Andrea Doria, the terror of the Mediterranean sea, and the victor in scores of desperate engagements, was anxious to avoid a fight.

Grimani and Capello, docile to the orders of their admiral, followed him full of uneasiness and distrust; they were fighting men of the most fiery description; to them the issue seemed of the simplest:  there was the enemy in inferior force to themselves, they had the weather gauge, why delay the attack?