CHAPTERS XXXIX-XLI
Wherein the Captive Relates His Life and Adventures
AS a young man, the stranger said, he had left Spain, bent on adventure and on becoming a soldier. He had served with the Duke of Alva in Flanders, and in the wars of the Christians against the Turks, the Moors, and the Arabs. In one of these wars he was taken prisoner by King El Uchali of Algiers; he had previously advanced to the rank of captain. He was held a captive for a long time, first at Constantinople, then at Tunis, then at Algiers. At Constantinople he encountered a good many other Christian prisoners. Particularly he remembered one Don Pedro de Augilar, a brave soldier and a native of Andalusia, who, he said, had written some very excellent poetry. He especially spoke of two sonnets which he had liked so well that he had learned them by heart. One day Don Pedro succeeded in making his escape, but what had become of him he had never heard.
As soon as the captive had spoken Don Pedro's name, the ladies and Don Fernando exchanged glances and smiled, and Don Fernando could not refrain from informing the narrator that Don Pedro was his brother. Furthermore, he said, he was safe in Andalusia, where he was happily married, in the best of health, and had three robust children. Then he touched on his brother's gift for composing poetry, and said that the very two sonnets the captive had mentioned, he himself knew by heart. Whereupon every one asked him to recite them, and so he did with fine feeling and intelligence. Then the captive resumed his story.
At Algiers, he said, there lived, overlooking the prison, a great alcaide named Hadji Morato, a very rich man, who had but one child, a daughter of great beauty. She had learned the Christian prayer from a slave of her father's, when she was a child; the things that this Christian woman had taught her had made her long to know more about the religion and to become a Christian herself. This beautiful Algerian maiden had seen the captive from her window, and she liked him, and one day she managed to get a message to him, begging him to escape and to take her with him. From time to time she would throw to him gold coins wrapped in cloth, and these he would hide until finally he had enough to buy not only himself but some other prisoners free from their slavery.
However, in order to effect the escape of the maiden, the captive was obliged to take into his confidence an old Algerian renegade who turned out to be a believer in Christ. With this man the captive sent messages to Zoraida. Now, this renegade was a sly fellow, and he bought a small vessel with which he began to ply to and fro between the city and some islands nearby, bringing back fruit each time, in order to alleviate all suspicions of his having acquired the vessel for any other purpose than trading. Finally it was decided the time had come for the escape, and the captive had himself ransomed.
That night the renegade had the ship anchored opposite the prison and Zoraida's garden, and, with the help of a number of Christians whom they had gathered as rowers, and who were eager to return to Spain, they secured the ship and put the Moorish crew in irons and chains.
Zoraida witnessed the proceedings from her window, and when she saw her captive and the renegade return in the skiff of the vessel, she hastened below into the garden. She was bedecked with a fortune in pearls and precious stones. She asked the renegade to follow her into the house, and when they returned, they brought with them a chest laden with gold. Just then her father was awakened and he began to shout in Arabic as loudly as he could that he was being robbed by Christians. Had it not been for the quick action of the renegade all might have been lost. He bound and gagged the father and carried him downstairs, where Zoraida had fainted in the captive's arms. Then they hastened back to the ship and set sail for Majorca.
It was some time before the old alcaide realized that his daughter had gone with the captive of her own free will, and when he learned it, he flung himself into the sea, but was rescued by one of the rowers. When he found himself then on board the ship, he began to curse his daughter, calling her a Christian dog and other vile names. Finally it was deemed best to set him and the other Moors ashore; and when the old man saw the ship sail away with his daughter, he began to sob and cry aloud in the most heartrending way, threatening to kill himself if she did not return to him. The last words that she heard were, "I forgive you all!" and they made her weep so bitterly that it seemed as if her tears would never cease flowing.
They were then less than a day's voyage from the coast of Spain. As they were breezing along with all sails set, over a moonlit sea, they saw a large ship appear in the distance. It turned out to be a French corsair from Rochelle out for plunder, for when it came closer it suddenly fired two guns that took terrible effect and wrecked their vessel. As the ship began to sink, they begged to be taken aboard the corsair, to which the captain was not averse. Once aboard they were told that if they had been courteous enough to reply to the question shouted from the corsair as to what port they were bound for, their own vessel would still have been intact. The covetous crew stripped them of all their valuable belongings, the pearls and jewels, money and adornments of Zoraida. The chest of gold, however, the renegade stealthily lowered into the sea without any one seeing it.