unsuccessful attempts to escape, with the natural consequences or
stricter watch and greater severities. At last, in the second year of
his captivity, he was able to let his friends know of his condition;
whereupon his father strained every resource to send a sufficient sum
to release Miguel, and his brother Rodrigo, who was in the like
plight. The brother was set free, but Cervantes himself was considered
too valuable for the price.

With the help of his liberated brother he once more concerted a plan
of escape. In a cavern six miles from Algiers, where he had a friend,
he concealed by degrees forty or fifty fugitives, chiefly Spanish
gentlemen, and contrived to supply them with food for six months,
without arousing suspicion. It was arranged that a Spanish ship should
be sent by his brother to take off the dwellers in the cave, whom
Cervantes now joined. The ship arrived; communications were already
opened; when some fishermen gave the alarm; the vessel was obliged to
put to sea; and, meanwhile, the treachery of one of the captives had
revealed the whole plot to Hasan Pasha, the Viceroy, who immediately
sent a party of soldiers to the cavern. Cervantes, with his natural
chivalry, at once came to the front and took the whole blame upon
himself. Surprised at this magnanimity, the Viceroy--who is described
in _Don Quixote_ as "the homicide of all human kind"[74]--sent for
him, and found him as good as his word. No threats of torture or death
could extort from him a syllable which could implicate any one of his
fellow-captives. His undaunted manner evidently overawed the Viceroy,
for instead of chastizing he purchased Cervantes from his master for
five hundred gold crowns.

Nothing could deter this valiant spirit from his designs upon freedom.
Attempt after attempt had failed, and still he tried again. Once he
was very near liberty, when a Dominican monk betrayed him; even then
he might have escaped, if he would have consented to desert his
companions in the plot: but he was Cervantes. He was within an ace of
execution, thanks to his own chivalry, and was kept for five months in
the Moor's bagnio, under strict watch, though without blows--no one
ever struck him during the whole of his captivity, though he often
stood in expectation of impalement or some such horrible death. At
last, in 1580, just as he was being taken off, laden with chains, to
Constantinople, whither Hasan Pasha had been recalled, Father Juan Gil
effe