ng his safety, loading him with chains, appointing him guards, and
watching him day and night.

'Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.'

Cervantes never lost heart a moment, but at once began to plan an escape
for himself and his fellow-captives. But the scheme broke down owing to
the treachery of the man in whom he had confided, and the Spaniards,
particularly Cervantes, were made to suffer a stricter confinement than
before. The following year the old Cervantes sent over what money he had
been able to raise on his own property and his daughters' marriage
portions for the ransom of his sons, by the hands of the Redemptorist
Fathers, an Order which had been founded for the sole purpose of
carrying on this charitable work. But when the sum was offered to Dali
Mami he declared it wholly insufficient for purchasing the freedom of
such a captive, though it was considered adequate as the ransom of the
younger brother Rodrigo. Accordingly, in August 1577, Rodrigo Cervantes
set sail for Spain, bearing secret orders from his brother Miguel to fit
out an armed frigate, and to send it by way of Valencia and Majorca to
rescue himself and his friends.

But even before the departure of Rodrigo, Cervantes had been laying
other plans. He had, somehow or other, managed to make acquaintance
with the Navarrese gardener of a Greek renegade named Azan, who had a
garden stretching down to the sea-shore, about three miles east of
Algiers, where Cervantes was then imprisoned. This gardener had
contrived to use a cave in Azan's garden as a hiding place for some
escaped Christians, and as far back as February 1577 about fifteen had
taken refuge there, under the direction of Cervantes. How they remained
for so many months undiscovered, and how they were all fed, no one can
tell; but this part of the duty had been undertaken by a captive
renegade called El Dorador, or the Gilder, to whom their secret had been
confided.

Meanwhile, Rodrigo had proved faithful to his trust. He had equipped a
frigate for sea, under the command of a tried soldier, Viana by name,
who was familiar with the Barbary coast. It set sail at the end of
September, and by the 28th had sighted Algiers. From motives of prudence
the boat kept to sea till nightfall, when it silently approached the
shore. The captives hailed it with joy, and were in the act of
embarking, when a fishing craft full of Moors passed by, and the rescue
vessel w