The next year, 1573, he was in the affair of the Goleta at Tunis, under Don John of Austria, and afterwards, with the regiment to which he was attached,[89] returned to Sicily and Italy, many parts of which, in different journeys or expeditions, he seems to have visited, remaining at one time in Naples above a year.[90] This period of his life, however, though marked with much suffering, seems never to have been regarded by him with regret. On the contrary, above forty years afterwards, with a generous pride in what he had undergone, he declared, that, if the alternative were again offered him, he should account his wounds a cheap exchange for the glory of having been present in that great enterprise.[91] [89] The regiment in which he served was one of the most famous in the armies of Philip II. It was the “Tercio de Flandes,” and at the head of it was Lope de Figueroa, who acts a distinguished part in two of the plays of Calderon,--“Amar despues de la Muerte,” and “El Alcalde de Zalamea.” Cervantes probably joined this favorite regiment again, when, as we shall see, he engaged in the expedition to Portugal in 1581, whither we know not only that he went that year, but that the Flanders regiment went also. [90] All his works contain allusions to the experiences of his life, and especially to his travels. When he sees Naples in his imaginary Viage del of Parnaso, (c. 8, p. 126), he exclaims,-- Esta ciudad es Nápoles la ilustre, Que yo pisé sus ruas mas de un año. [91] “Si ahora me propusieran y facilitaran un imposible,” says Cervantes, in reply to the coarse personalities of Avellaneda, “quisiera ántes haberme hallado en aquella faccion prodigiosa, que sano ahora de mis heridas, sin haberme hallado en ella.” Prólogo á Don Quixote, Parte Segunda, 1615. When he was discharged, in 1575, he took with him letters from the Duke of Sessa and Don John, commending him earnestly to the king, and embarked for Spain. But on the 26th of September he was captured and carried into Algiers, where he passed five years yet more disastrous and more full of adventure than the five preceding. He served successively three cruel masters,--a Greek and a Venetian, both renegadoes, and the Dey, or King, himself; the first two tormenting him with that peculiar hatred against Christians which naturally belonged to persons who, from unworthy motives, had joined themselves to the enemies of all Christendom; and the last, the Dey, claiming him for his slave, and treating him with great severity, because he had fled from his master and become formidable by a series of efforts to obtain liberty for himself and his fellow-captives.