Page:Don Quixote (Cervantes, Ormsby) Volume 1.djvu/39

 Rh used to say that so long as he kept tight hold of the crippled Spaniard, his captives, his ships, and his city were safe. What was it, then, that made him hold his hand in his paroxysms of rage? When it was so easy to relieve himself of all the trouble and anxiety his prisoner caused him, what was it that restrained him? It may be said it was the admiration he felt at the noble bearing, dauntless courage, and self-devotion of the man, that made him merciful. But is it likely that the fiend Haedo and Cervantes describe, who hanged, impaled, and cut off ears every day, for the mere pleasure of doing it—who most likely had, like his friend the Arnaut Mami, "a house filled with noseless Christians"—would have been influenced by any such feeling? There are, we know, men who seem to bear a charmed life among savages, and to exercise some mysterious power over the savage mind; but the Dey Hassan was no savage; he was worse. With all respect for the Haedos, uncle and nephew, and their chief informant Doctor de Sosa, it would be hard to avoid a suspicion that they had exaggerated, were it not that the story they tell is confirmed in every particular by a formally attested document discovered in 1808 by Cean Bermudez, acting on a suggestion of Navarrete's, in the Archivo General de Indias at Seville.

The poverty-stricken Cervantes family had been all this time trying once more to raise the ransom money, and at last a sum of three hundred ducats was got together and intrusted to the Redemptorist Father Juan Gil, who was about to sail for Algiers. The Dey, however, demanded more than double the sum offered, and as his term of office had expired and he was about to sail for Constantinople, taking all his slaves with him, the case of Cervantes was critical. He was already on board heavily ironed, when the Dey at length agreed to reduce his demand by one-half, and Father Gil by borrowing was able to make up the amount, and on September 19, 1580, after a captivity of five years all but a week, Cervantes was at last set free. Before long he discovered that Blanco de Paz, who claimed to be an officer of the Inquisition, was now concocting on false evidence a charge of misconduct to be brought against him on his return to Spain. To checkmate him Cervantes drew up a series of twenty-five questions, covering the whole period of his captivity, upon which he requested Father Gil to take the depositions of credible witnesses before a notary. Eleven witnesses taken from among the principal captives in