might render him the more impatient of his servitude, and so induce him to pay a higher ransom, which the rank and condition of his friends in Europe appeared to promise. In this state Cervantes continued five years. Some have thought that in "the captive's" tale, related in Don Quixote, we may collect the particulars of his own fortunes whilst in Africa; but even granting that some of the incidents may be the same, it is now generally supposed that we shall be deceived if we regard them as any detailed account of his captivity. A man of Cervantes' enterprise and abilities was not likely to endure tamely the hardships of slavery; and we accordingly find that he was constantly forming schemes for escape. The last of these, which was the most bold and best contrived of all, failed, because he had admitted a traitor to a share in his project.

There was at Algiers a Venetian renegade, named Hassan Aga, a friend of Arnauté Mami; he had risen high in the king's favour, and occupied an important post in the government of Algiers. We have a description of this man's ferocious character in Don Quixote, given us by the Captain de Viedma. Cervantes was often sent by his master as messenger to this man's house, situated on the sea-shore, at a short distance from Algiers. One of Hassan's slaves, a native of Navarre, and a Christian, had the management of the gardens of the villa; and with him Cervantes soon formed an acquaintance, and succeeded in persuading him to allow the making of a secret cave under the garden, which would form a place of concealment for himself and fifteen of his fellow captives, on whom he could rely. When the cavern was finished, the adventurers made their escape by night from Algiers, and took up their quarters in it. Of course an alarm was raised when they were missing; but, although a most strict search after the fugitives was made, both by their masters and by Ochali, then despot of Algiers, here they lay hid for several months, being supplied with food by the gardener and another Christian slave, named El Dorador.

One of their companions, named Viana, a gentleman of Minorca, had been left behind them, so that he might bear a more active part in the escape of the whole party. A sum of money was to be raised for his ransom, and then he was to go to Europe and return with a ship in which Cervantes and his friends, including the gardener and El Dorador, were to embark on an appointed night, and so get back to their country. Viana obtained his liberty in September 1577, and having reached Minorca in safety, he easily procured a ship and came off the coast of Barbary, according to the pre-concerted plan; but before he could land, he was seen by the Moorish sentry, who raised an alarm and obliged him to put out to sea again, lest he should by coming too close attract attention to the cavern. This was a sore disappointment to Cervantes and his companions, who witnessed it all from their retreat. Still knowing Viana's courage and constancy, they had yet hopes of his returning and again endeavouring to get them off. And this he most probably would have done had it not been for the treachery at which we hinted above. El Dorador just at this time thought fit to turn renegade; and of course he could not begin his infidel career better than by infamously betraying his former friends. In consequence of his information Hassan Aga surrounded the entrance to the cave with a sufficient force to make any attempt at resistance utterly unavailing, and the sixteen poor prisoners were dragged out and conveyed in chains to Algiers. The former attempts which he made to escape caused Cervantes to be instantly fixed on as the contriver and ringleader of this plot; and therefore, whilst the other fifteen were sent back to their masters to be punished as they thought fit, he was detained by the king himself, who hoped through him to obtain further information, and so implicate the other Christians, and perhaps also some of the renegades. Even had he possessed any such information, which most likely he did not, Cervantes was certainly the very last man to give it: notwithstanding various examinations and threats, he still persisted in asserting that he was the sole contriver of the plot, till at length, by his firmness, he fairly exhausted the patience of Ochali. Had Hassan had his way, Cervantes would have been strangled as an example to all Christians who should hereafter try to run away from their captivity, and the king himself was not unwilling to please him in this matter; but then he was not their property, and Mami, to whom he belonged, would not consent to lose a slave whom he considered to be worth at least two hundred crowns. Thus did the avarice of a renegade save the future author of Don Quixote from being strangled with the bowstring. Some of the particulars of this affair are given us by Cervantes himself; but others are collected from Father Haedo, the contemporary author of a history of Barbary. "Most wonderful thing," says the worthy priest, "that some of these gentlemen remained shut up in the cavern for five, six, even for seven months, without even so much as seeing the light of day; and all the time they were sustained only by Miguel de Cervantes, and that too at the great and continual risk of his own life; no less than four times did he incur the nearest danger of being burnt alive, impaled, or strangled, on account of the bold things which he dared in hopes of bestowing liberty upon many. Had his fortune corresponded to his spirit, skill, and industry, Algiers might at this day have been in the possession of the Christians, for his designs aspired to no less lofty a consummation. In the end, the whole affair was treacherously discovered; and the gardener, after being tortured and picketed, perished miserably. But, in truth, of the things which happened in that cave during the seven months that it was inhabited by these Christians, and altogether of the captivity and various enterprises of Miguel de Cervantes, a particular history might easily be formed. Hassan Aga was wont to say that, 'could he but be sure of that handless Spaniard, he should consider captives, barks, and the whole city of Algiers in perfect safety.'"

And Ochali seems to have been of the same opinion; for he did not consider it safe to leave so dangerous a character as Cervantes in private hands, and so we accordingly find that he himself bought him of Mami, and then kept him closely confined in a dungeon in his own palace, with the utmost cruelty. It is probable, however, that the extreme hardship of Cervantes' case did really contribute to his liberation. He found means of applying to Spain for his redemption; and in consequence his mother and sister (the former of whom had now become a widow, and the latter, Donna Andrea de Cervantes, was married to a Florentine gentleman named Ambrosio) raised the sum of two hundred and fifty crowns, to which a friend of the family, one Francisco Caramambel, contributed fifty more. This sum was paid into the hands of Father Juan Gil and Father Antonio de la Vella Trinitarios, brethren of the 'Society for the Redemption of Slaves,'[1] who immediately set to work to ransom Cervantes. His case was, however, a hard one; for the king asked a thousand crowns for his freedom; and the negotiation on this head caused a long delay, but was at last brought to an issue by the abatement of the ransom to the sum of five hundred crowns; the two hundred still wanting were made up by the good fathers, the king threatening that if the bargain were not concluded, Cervantes should be carried off to Constantinople; and he was actually on board the galley for that purpose. So by borrowing some part of the required amount, and by taking the remainder from what was originally intrusted for the ransoming of