Turkish waters. The good father felt that once in Constantinople,
Cervantes would probably remain a prisoner to the end of his life, and
made unheard of efforts to accomplish his release, borrowing the money
that was still lacking from some Algerian merchants, and even using the
ransoms that had been entrusted to him for other captives. Then at last
Cervantes was set free, and after five years was able to go where he
would and return to his native country.

His work however was not yet done. He somehow discovered that a Spaniard
named Blanco de Paz, who had once before betrayed him, was determined,
through jealousy, to have him arrested the moment he set foot in Spain,
and to this end had procured a mass of false evidence respecting his
conduct in Algiers. It is not easy to see what Cervantes could have done
to incur the hatred of this man, but about this he did not trouble
himself to inquire, and set instantly to consider the best way of
bringing his schemes to naught. He entreated his friend, Father Gil, to
be present at an interview held before the notary Pedro de Ribera, at
which a number of respectable Christians appeared to answer a paper of
twenty-five questions, propounded by Cervantes himself, as to the
principal events of his five years of imprisonment, and his treatment of
his fellow-captives. Armed with this evidence, he was able to defy the
traitor, and to return in honour to his native land.

With the rest of his life we have nothing to do. It was not, we may be
sure, lacking in adventure, for he was the kind of man to whom
adventures come, and as his inheritance was all gone, he went back to
his old trade, and joined the army which Philip was assembling to
enforce his claim to the crown of Portugal. In this country as in all
others to which his wandering life had led him, he made many friends and
took notice of what went on around him. He was in all respects a man
practical and vigorous, in many ways the exact opposite of his own Don
Quixote, who saw everything enlarged and glorified and nothing as it
really was, but in other ways the true counterpart of his hero in his
desire to give help and comfort wherever it was needed, and to leave the
world better than he found it.

_THE WORTHY ENTERPRISE OF JOHN FOXE, AN ENGLISHMAN, IN DELIVERING TWO
HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIX CHRISTIANS OUT OF THE CAPTIVITY OF THE TURKS AT
ALEXANDRIA, JANUARY 3, 1577_

AMONG our English merchants it is a common thing to tra