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By the time the book appeared he had left Spain, and, as fate ordered it,

for twelve years, the most eventful ones of his life Giulio, afterwards

Cardinal, Acquaviva had been sent at the end of 1568 to Philip II by the

Pope on a mission, partly of condolence, partly political, and on his

return to Ro, he

took Cervantes with him as his camarero (chamberlain), the office he

himself held in the Pope's household The post would no doubt have led to

advancement at the Papal Court had Cervantes retained it, but in the

suned it and enlisted as a private soldier in

Captain Diego Urbina's coi 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 enthusias 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 co 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 co of the 7th of October, when the Turkish fleet was sighted, he was

lying below ill with fever At the news that the eneht he

rose, and, in spite of the remonstrances of his co 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 ar to Navarrete, he had an intervieith the

co 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