near a garden belonging to a renegade, named Hassan, whose gardener and another slave were in the secret. He was there joined by several Christian prisoners; and the party remained in the cave for several months, hoping that the opportune arrival of some vessel might deliver them from their anxious duress. At last a ransomed captive, a native of Majorca and friend of Cervantes, left Algiers, and returning to his country, fitted out a vessel, with the intention of releasing his countrymen. He arrived off the coast in the night, and was on the point of landing near the entrance of the cave, when some Moors, who were passing by, spied him, and raised the alarm, on which the vessel stood out again to sea. One of Hassan’s two servants next day went to the Dey, and, in hopes of a reward, informed him that fifteen Christians were concealed in the cave. They were immediately seized and loaded with chains. Cervantes, who appeared the leader, was closely questioned by the Dey himself, whether he had any accomplices in the city. He answered steadily, that the scheme had been planned and carried on by himself alone. After this examination, he was returned to his master. Nothing disheartened, he devised other means of escape, which likewise failed; until at last he conceived the daring scheme of organising a general rising of the Christian slaves in Algiers, and taking forcible possession of the town. But by the cowardice of some of them, the plot was betrayed; and Cervantes was again seized, and carried to the prison of the Dey, who declared that his capital and his ships were not safe “unless he kept himself a close watch over the crippled Spaniard.” So earnest was he in this feeling, that he even purchased Cervantes from his master, and kept him confined in irons; but he did not otherwise ill treat the prisoner, partly, perhaps, out of respect for so brave a man, partly in the hope of obtaining a high ransom for him. Father Haëdo, in his “Topografia de Argel,” gives an account of Cervantes’ captivity, and of the repeated attempts which he made to escape. Meantime his widowed mother and his sister in Spain had not forgotten him, and they contrived, in the year 1579, to raise a sum of 300 ducats, which they delivered to two monks of the order of Trinity, or Mercy, who were proceeding to Algiers for the ransom of slaves. In 1580 they arrived, and treated with the Dey for Cervantes’ ransom, which, after an extravagant sum had been demanded, was settled at 500 golden scudi. The good fathers made up the deficiency in the sum they had been intrusted with; and at last, in September of that year, Cervantes found himself free. Early in the following year he returned to Spain. Having met nothing but misfortunes and disappointment in his endeavours to make his fortune in the world, he now determined to return to his literary pursuits. In 1584 he published his “Galatea,” a pastoral novel. At the end of that year he married Doña Catalina Palacios de Salazar, a lady of