The gardener was hanged; after some hesitation, Hassan decided to spare Cervantes’s life, and finally bought him from Dali Mami for five hundred crowns. It is difficult to account for this act of relative mercy in a man who is described in _Don Quixote_ as the murderer of the human race, a hæmatomaniac who delighted in murder for murder’s sake, one who hanged, impaled, tortured and mutilated his prisoners every day. It may be that he was genuinely struck by Cervantes’s unflinching courage; it may be that he expected an immense ransom for a man who was plainly the leader of the captives. What is certain is that Cervantes was now Hassan’s slave; though imprisoned in irons, he soon showed that his heroic spirit was unbroken. He sent a letter to Martín de Córdoba, the governor of Orán, asking for aid to enable himself and three other captives to escape; the messenger seemed likely to fulfil his mission, but was arrested close to Orán, sent back, and impaled. For writing the letter Cervantes was sentenced to two thousand blows, but the sentence was remitted, and it would almost seem as though Cervantes completely forgot the incident, for in _Don Quixote_ he goes out of his way to record that _un tal Saavedra_—a certain Saavedra, Something-or-Other Saavedra (who can be nobody but himself)—was never struck by Hassan, and was never threatened by Hassan with a blow. This may appear perplexing, but as the writer goes on to say that Hassan never addressed a harsh word to this Saavedra, it is plain that the whole passage is an idealistic arabesque; the discrepancy between the gloss and the facts shows the danger of seeking exact biographical data in any imaginative work, however heavily freighted with personal reminiscences.