El Buscapié

by Adolfo de Castro

Undaunted by failure, Cervantes determined on the first favourable opportunity to renew his efforts to obtain his own deliverance and that of his companions. Increasing difficulties had no other effect than that of strengthening his resolution to surmount them. He felt an irresistible longing for that freedom, which, to quote his own words, is “the dearest gift which Heaven has bestowed on man. For freedom,” he adds, “as well as for honour, it is our duty to sacrifice life. Captivity, on the other hand, is the greatest misfortune which man can be doomed to bear.” He gained over to his interests a Moorish slave, whom he persuaded to convey a letter from him to the Spanish governor of Oran. The object of this communication was to facilitate a plan for the liberation of himself and three of his fellow-prisoners. The letter was however intercepted, and the messenger, by order of Hassan, was immediately shot. Cervantes, as the writer of the missive, was sentenced to receive two thousand stripes; and only by the urgent and repeated intercession of the Christians in Algiers, was the noble slave saved from the infliction of that barbarous punishment. The three Spaniards who were comprehended in the projected plan of escape were put to death; and the extension of Hassan’s mercy to Cervantes may be attributed in a great measure to the influence which an exalted character exercises even on the most uncivilized of mankind.

Another, and to all appearance, a more practicable plan of escape, contrived in 1579, was foiled by the treachery of a Dominican monk. Hassan, to whom the design was disclosed, affected at first to have no suspicion of it; hoping by that means to ensure its detection. The Christians, however, soon learned that their project was discovered. A native of Valencia, settled as a merchant in Algiers, had promised to aid the escape of the prisoners. This man spared no endeavours to prevail on Cervantes to slip away furtively and unknown to his companions. He even undertook to convey him safely on board a vessel about to sail for Spain; for knowing that the Moors would resort to every extremity to extort a confession, the merchant feared that his own life and property might be endangered. Cervantes had by this time broken from prison, and was concealed in the house of a friend; consequently he might with perfect ease and safety have effected his escape on board the ship in the manner proposed. But he would not listen to the suggestion of deserting his companions, and he quieted the apprehensions of the merchant by the most solemn assurance, that neither the fear of torture or death would wring from him a word of avowal that could in any degree compromise a friend. Meanwhile, an order of the Dey was proclaimed through the streets of Algiers, commanding the Slave Cervantes to deliver himself up, and warning those who might harbour him, that they would incur the punishment of death. The fugitive, anxious to screen his friends from all risk, surrendered himself. Aga Hassan, without a moment’s hesitation, ordered him to be hanged. After his hands were tied behind his back, and the rope put round his neck, he was informed that he might yet save his own life by the disclosure of his accomplices. But, faithful to that generosity of feeling, which was one of the most prominent traits in his character, Cervantes persisted in declaring that he alone had wished to escape; but to avoid being further pressed by questions, he named as the accomplices of his design, four Spaniards who had, some time previously, obtained their liberation by the payment of ransom-money. The intercession of an influential renegade, who was an attached friend of Cervantes, induced the Dey once more to spare his life; but he was thrown into a dungeon of the Bagnio, heavily fettered, and watched with the strictest vigilance.

The next project conceived by Cervantes, exceeded in boldness all that he had previously concerted. It was of so wild and romantic a character, that its reality might naturally warrant disbelief, were it not authenticated by trustworthy evidence. This scheme was nothing less than the excitement of an insurrection among the Christian slaves in Algiers, who were to make themselves masters of the city, and transfer it to the dominion of Phillip II. Notwithstanding the rigorous nature of his imprisonment, he contrived to take some steps towards the execution of this bold enterprise. Whether the project was thwarted by discovery, or to what other cause its frustration was assignable does not clearly appear. Certain it is, however, that the Dey of Algiers regarded Cervantes as the boldest and most ingenious of all his Christian slaves. Father Diego de Haedo relates, that so greatly did Aga Hassan fear Cervantes, that he used to say, “he should consider his slaves, his barks, and the whole city of Algiers perfectly safe, could he but get rid of that one-handed Spaniard!”

At length, the freedom so ardently sighed for, and for the attainment of which so many fruitless efforts had been made, was recovered, at a time when even Cervantes himself, sanguine as he was, had well nigh relinquished all hope of ever again being restored to his country.

In the year 1580, Juan Gil and Antonio de la Bella, two monks of the order of the Santissima Trinidad, were sent from Spain to Algiers; the former as Redentor, or slave ransomer, for the Province of Castile, and the latter in the same capacity for the Province of Andalusia. The father of Cervantes was by this time dead, and the family were left in rather straitened circumstances;—nevertheless they succeeded, by dint of great exertion, in raising some money to assist in ransoming their relative. Doña Leonora de Cortinas, the mother of Cervantes, contributed two hundred and fifty ducats;—and Doña Andrea de Cervantes, his sister, gave fifty.[20] The family naturally hoped that the high testimonials of courage and merit, furnished in favour of Cervantes by his former military comrades, together with the letter of recommendation from the Duke de Sesa to the king, would gain the interest of the Court in his behalf. But the appeals addressed to that high quarter were responded to with only lukewarm interest, and accordingly the Monks departed with a sum very inadequate to the accomplishment of the object of their mission, which was to obtain the release of some of the principal captives. Doña Leonora de Cortinas furnished the Redentores with a description of her son, setting forth that he was a native of Alcalá, and the slave of Dali-Mami, the captain of the Dey’s barks,[21] that he was thirty-three years of age and had lost his left hand. A description of himself given by Cervantes to the authorities in Algiers is as follows—“A native of Alcalá de Henares, aged thirty-one, of middle height, having a thick beard (bien barbado), disabled of the use of the left arm and wanting the left hand; captured on board the galley El Sol, when on his passage from Spain to Naples, where he had been long in the service of His Majesty.”[22]

The Redentores arrived in Algiers on the 29th of May, 1580. At that very time the Dey was on the eve of resigning his authority in favour of another Pacha, who was elected to the government of Algiers. Hassan, who had been recalled by the Sultan to Constantinople, was preparing to return thither. Cervantes, being one of the captives he intended to take with him, was actually on board a galley, and ready to sail for the Turkish capital, when the slave ransomers arrived in Algiers. There was no time to be lost, and negotiations for the ransom were set on foot without a moment’s delay. The amount demanded was more than double the sum which the Redentores were authorised to pay. However, Father Juan Gil made up the deficiency by devoting to the release of Cervantes a portion of the money advanced by the friends of other captives, who being then absent from Algiers, their ransom could not be effected. The Redentores pledged themselves to refund the money on their return to Spain, and by these arrangements, together with some abatement in the demand of Aga Hassan, Cervantes obtained his release on the 19th of September, 1580.

But joyfully as he hailed the prospect of returning to his native land, he nevertheless resolved, ere he should quit Algiers, to controvert certain calumnies circulated against him, which he conceived were calculated to impugn his honour. The Dominican Monk, who had betrayed the last plan formed by the Spanish captives for their escape, and who had thereby incurred the hatred of all the Christians in Algiers, sought in revenge to cast on Cervantes the odium of having caused the failure of the enterprise. Cervantes, whose nice sense of honour urged him to free himself from even the slightest trace of suspicion, appealed to the testimony of twelve of his fellow captives, all of them men of high character and members of noble Spanish families. Their evidence refuted in the most complete and satisfactory way the calumnious charges of the Benedictine monk. They unanimously declared that though there were many noble Spanish cavaliers in Algiers, not one was more distinguished for honourable and generous sentiment than Miguel de Cervantes; and that he had invariably manifested the sincerest interest and sympathy for his countrymen and fellow-captives, all of whom regarded him in the light of a brother.

On the 22nd of October, 1580, after five years of detention in Algiers, Cervantes embarked for Spain. He had now before him the cheering prospect of that happiness which he himself has declared to be “one of the greatest that can be enjoyed in this life;—the return to one’s native country after prolonged captivity.” “There is,” he adds, “no happiness like the recovery of lost freedom.”[23]

On his return to Spain, about the end of the year 1580, he repaired straight to Madrid, where his mother and sister were then residing. The reduced circumstances in which he found his family determined him once more to try his fortune as a soldier. At this time, Philip II. was intent on completing his conquest of Portugal by the acquisition of the rich colonial dependencies of that kingdom. It had been determined to maintain a Castilian army in Portugal, for the purpose of preserving public tranquillity, enforcing obedience to the authorities of King Philip, and preparing the reduction of the Azores or Terceras Islands. Rodrigo Cervantes, who on his return from Algiers, had resumed military service, was now in the army of occupation in Portugal, and he was speedily joined there by his brother Miguel.