[92] One of the most trustworthy and curious sources for this part of the life of Cervantes is “La Historia y Topografia de Argel,” por D. Diego de Haedo, (Valladolid, 1612, folio), in which Cervantes is often mentioned, but which seems to have been overlooked in all inquiries relating to him, till Sarmiento stumbled upon it, in 1752. It is in this work that occur the words cited in the text, and which prove how formidable Cervantes had become to the Dey,--“Decia Asan Bajá, Rey de Argel, que como él tuviese guardado al estropeado Español tenia seguros sus cristianos, sus baxeles y aun toda la ciudad.” (f. 185.) And just before this, referring to the bold project of Cervantes to take the city by an insurrection of the slaves, Haedo says, “Y si á su animo, industria, y trazas, correspondiera la ventura, hoi fuera el dia, que Argel fuera de cristianos; porque no aspiraban á menos sus intentos.” All this, it should be recollected, was published four years before Cervantes’s death. The whole book, including not only the history, but the dialogues at the end on the sufferings and martyrdom of the Christians in Algiers, is very curious, and often throws a strong light on passages of Spanish literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which so often refer to the Moors and their Christian slaves on the coasts of Barbary. [93] With true Spanish pride, Cervantes, when alluding to himself in the story of the Captive, (Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 40), says of the Dey, “Solo libró bien con él un soldado Español llamado tal de Saavedra, al qual con haber hecho cosas que quedarán en la memoria de aquellas gentes por muchos años, y todos por alcanzar libertad, _jamas le dió palo_, ni se lo mandó dar, ni le dixo mala palabra, y por la menor cosa de muchas que hizo, temiamos todos que habia de ser empalado, y _así lo temió él mas de una vez_.” At last, the moment of release came. His elder brother, who was captured with him, had been ransomed three years before; and now his widowed mother was obliged to sacrifice, for her younger son’s freedom, all the pittance that remained to her in the world, including the dowry of her daughters. But even this was not enough; and the remainder of the poor five hundred crowns that were demanded as the price of his liberty was made up partly by small borrowings, and partly by the contributions of religious charity.[94] In this way he was ransomed on the 19th of September, 1580, just at the moment when he had embarked with his master, the Dey, for Constantinople, whence his rescue would have been all but hopeless. A short time afterwards he left Algiers, where we have abundant proof, that, by his disinterestedness, his courage, and his fidelity, he had, to an extraordinary degree, gained the affection and respect of the multitude of Christian captives with which that city of anathemas was then crowded.[95]