Rebels and Reformers: Biographies for Young People

by Baron Arthur Ponsonby Ponsonby; Dorothea Ponsonby

CERVANTES

Let us try and follow him through the main events of his crowded life. Miguel de Cervantes was born in 1547. Alcala de Henares in New Castille was his birthplace, but very little is known of his childhood. As a boy he used to watch the strolling players in the town, and he relates details of his recollection of them which remained stamped on his memory. They would come round and give performances in the market square. Their properties consisted of a sack which held four white sheepskin dresses trimmed with gilt leather, four beards, wigs, and crooks. The decoration of the theater was an old blanket hung on two ropes. One can well imagine that their performances and the verses of the comedies remained with him vividly when he was grown up. His education was supposed to have been neglected because he never went to a university. But if he made mistakes in his writings which a man who had passed examinations would have avoided, he managed to obtain a knowledge of men and life—a more important knowledge, which many a ripe scholar might envy. At an early age he tried his hand at writing, and at twenty-one his poems, on the death of the Queen of Spain, were especially praised by his tutor.

Years were destined to pass before Cervantes settled down to any literary work. I expect he knew he had the talent, but there was very little chance for him to test it. He liked adventure and wanted to be up and doing, so he seized the first opportunity he could of gaining some experience of the world outside his own country. He went to Rome and became a page in the household of an envoy of the Pope whose acquaintance he had made in Madrid. But this did not suit him, because the life of a page or chamberlain was intolerably slow and uneventful. Bowing and scraping, entertaining and intriguing, was not in his line at all. He resigned his post and enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish regiment in Italy. Pope Pius V was organizing at that time a Holy League against the Turks, whose great conquests were alarming the States of Europe. But there was some difficulty in getting European nations to agree to any plan for attacking Turkey. They were jealous of one another and would not all act together. At last, after a long delay, which was spent by Cervantes in Naples, the League, consisting of the Pope, Venice, and Spain, was organized under the command of the famous Don John of Austria, a brilliant general, who was half-brother of King Philip II of Spain. The fleet of these three States was the largest that had ever sailed under a Christian flag. It consisted of galleys rowed by a large number of oarsmen, who were all criminals under sentence. In the Turkish fleet the oarsmen were Christian slaves. The object of the allies was to recover Cyprus from the Turks. But before they could reach so far a great naval engagement took place in the Gulf of Lepanto, at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth. After some hard fighting the allied fleets were victorious.

Miguel de Cervantes, though he was acting only as a common soldier, behaved with conspicuous heroism. Weak with fever which he had caught at Naples, he insisted, in spite of protests, on obtaining the command of a dozen men, and stood with them in a position exposed to the hottest fire of the enemy. From his ship he boarded one of the Turkish galleys and received three gunshot wounds—two in the breast and one shattering his left hand, which was maimed for the rest of his life. His conduct won for him the applause of all his comrades, and he always looked back on this episode as the most glorious in his career.

Twenty thousand Turks perished, and a hundred and seventy of their galleys were captured in this memorable fight at Lepanto, which, if it did not destroy, anyhow arrested the power of Turkey. A great storm followed the victory, and Don John sailed away to Messina with his wounded men, whom he landed there. Cervantes, whose wounds were very severe, was among them. He received a special grant of money for his distinguished service. But so eager was he to be at the front again that it was not long before he had joined Don John in his second attempt to overcome the Turkish fleet, which, however, was unsuccessful.

A campaign in Africa followed and Tunis was captured, soon, however, to be recaptured by the Turks, whose power remained unbroken. These expeditions occupied nearly four years, and Cervantes went through the experience of the hardships of war, the joy of victory, and the despair of defeat. He was now a sick and maimed soldier who had witnessed deeds of knightly valor, but had also known the wearisome delays, the failures, and the disappointments of a soldier’s life.

Having been away for six years, he asked leave to return to his native land. This was granted, and he left Naples in a galley called El Sol with letters from Don John to the King, in which he was strongly recommended as “a man of valor, of merit, and of many signal services.” But on the voyage a terrible calamity befell him, which was to be the greatest of all his adventures and the severest of all his trials. Just as he was rejoicing at the sight of the Spanish coast, a squadron of corsairs, or pirates, under a redoubtable captain who was the terror of the Mediterranean, bore down on El Sol. A desperate fight followed, but the pirate galleys were too strong. A number of Spaniards were captured, and Cervantes found himself carried off to Africa and placed at the mercy of a savage Greek who was noted for his wild ferocity. As letters were found on him from Don John of Austria, he was considered a prize of considerable value, for whom a large ransom might be demanded. Accordingly he was sent to Algiers heavily chained, and was treated there with the greatest severity.

During his captivity, which lasted as long as five years, Cervantes showed the most splendid courage; adversity, indeed, brought out the finest qualities in his character. He persistently organized plans of escape, the failure of one never deterring him from preparing another. On the first occasion his project was defeated by a Moor, who was engaged as a guide but deserted at the last moment, and the party of fugitives were obliged to return to Algiers, where Cervantes was severely punished. The next year a sum of money was sent over by his parents, but was not sufficient for his ransom. His brother Rodrigo, who was one of the prisoners, was, however, set free, and went home to Spain with a request that a war vessel should be despatched to Algiers to rescue the others. Cervantes in the meantime made all the necessary arrangements for escape. He concealed about fifty of the Spanish fugitives in a cave outside the town, and actually managed to have them supplied with food for six months. It was a long time to wait, but at last the day came when the ship was expected, and he and his comrades were in readiness. But, as bad luck would have it, a traitor betrayed them at the critical moment and their secret got out. A force of armed Turks discovered and captured them. Cervantes immediately took upon himself the whole blame and declared that he alone was responsible. Though threatened with torture and even death, he refused to implicate any one of his companions in the scheme of flight. The cruel Turkish Governor, Hassan Pasha, before whom he was brought did not as a rule hesitate to hang, impale, or mutilate his prisoners. But in this case he appears to have been overawed by the astounding fearlessness of the remarkable Spaniard who was brought before him.

While in captivity Cervantes addressed a rhymed letter to the King’s secretary describing the sufferings of himself and his companions and appealing for help from Spain. Although nothing came of this, the undaunted hero set about devising a new plan of escape, which yet again was destined to be frustrated. This time his messenger was caught and ordered to be impaled, while he himself was condemned to receive two thousand blows with a stick; this latter sentence, fortunately, was never carried out. Notwithstanding repeated failure and the dangerous risks he ran, Cervantes on the first opportunity hatched another plot.

Two merchants agreed to provide an armed vessel in which sixty of the principal captives were to embark. A Spanish monk called Blanco de Paz, who seems for some unknown motive to have conceived a deadly hatred for Cervantes, revealed the scheme before it could be carried out. In spite of this, however, the adventurous captive might easily have escaped from the terrible life to which he was doomed had he consented to the proposal of the merchants to go away alone. But he firmly refused to abandon his companions in their distress, and in order that none of his friends might suffer, he came forward once more and gave himself up to the Governor. He was bound and led with a rope round his neck before Hassan. As usual, he displayed no fear, although this time he fully expected that he would be hanged or impaled, or at least have his nose and ears cut off by the Governor’s orders. But for some mysterious reason—probably the hope that a very high price would be offered for so remarkable a man—nothing worse than five months’ close confinement in chains was meted out to him. Hassan declared that so long as he had the maimed Spaniard in safe keeping his Christians, ships, and city were secure.