as due to him alone.

Why Hassan spared his life it would be hard to say. Scores of men in his
position had died by the most cruel tortures for a less offence, while
he was only threatened, and kept for a while in chains. Possibly Hassan
felt that such a man must surely be ransomed sooner or later, and spared
him in hopes of gain. He is said to have remarked, 'If I could keep hold
of that maimed Spaniard, I should be sure of my slaves, my ships, and my
whole city.'

Nor was he much mistaken, for Cervantes, while the chains were still
upon his limbs, was busy with new plots. One more attempt at escape
failed through treachery, and the indomitable prisoner conceived a yet
more daring project, and contrived to appeal to the King of Spain,
begging for armed help, and promising a revolt of the whole slave
population. The thing might well have been carried out, for there were
something like twenty thousand Christian captives in Algiers, but, alas!
King Philip was too busy quarrelling with his neighbours in Portugal to
win himself the honour of crushing the pirate city which was the scourge
of all Christendom.

And then at last arrived in Algiers Father Juan Gil, a good monk, whose
work it was to collect and carry to Africa the ransom money for some of
the captives, and with him he brought three hundred ducats, scraped
together with sore pains and privations by the mother and sister of
Cervantes, to purchase his freedom. Hassan, however, would have none of
such a paltry sum; even when it was increased to five hundred he
demanded double the amount, and as his viceroyalty in Algiers was just
over, he declared his intention of taking the Spanish slave with him to
Constantinople.

So good Father Juan, feeling that it was now or never, went from one to
another of the merchants trading along the coast, and, begging and
borrowing right and left, made up the required sum. On the very day
fixed for the Viceroy's departure, the good Father bore the ransom in
triumph to Hassan, and Miguel de Cervantes was a free man. He carried
back with him to Spain the love and gratitude of many a fellow-sufferer,
and I think that much of the kindly humour, the hopeful courage and
patience with other people's follies, which has made the author of _Don
Quixote_ the friend of the whole world, must have been learned in the
hard school of his Moorish captivity.

MARY H. DEBENHAM.

A PINCUSHION FACTORY.

May and Ada were thinking. That is h