little occasion, or so entirely without cause, that the Turks would own he did it merely for the sake of doing it, and because it was his nature.” This “homicide of all human kind,” as Cervantes stigmatises him in another place, was so inexplicably dominated by fear and respect of his slave that he was wont to declare that, “if he had this maimed Spaniard in safe keeping, he would reckon as secure his Christians, his ships, and his city.” But the most difficult feat of his governorship--Hassan Pasha was at this period Viceroy and virtual King of Algeria--was to retain his intrepid prisoner in custody. Twice the hangman’s rope was drawn upon his neck, and twice his head was, at the last moment, taken from the noose. On one occasion he was ordered 2,000 blows with a stick by “the most cruel tyrant of all those who have been kings of Algiers,” but the rod never descended upon his body. Yet it is known that he did not volunteer one word on his own behalf, or urge a single plea in extenuation of his designs. When the viceroy’s soldiers captured a little band of Christians, on the eve of their embarkation on a frigate sent to their relief, it was Miguel de Cervantes who went forward alone to meet the captors, declaring that he alone was the instigator of the whole plot, and that none of his companions had any part or blame in the business. He repeated his statement in the presence of Hassan Pasha, and although “threatened with torture and instant death, with the spectacle of many of his companions hanged or mutilated before his eyes, Cervantes refused to implicate any one in his schemes of flight.” In 1577, Cervantes, recognising the unpreparedness of the Algerians, the weakness of the city’s fortifications, and the numerical superiority of the Christian population to support from within a systematic scheme to capture the city, made an ineffectual appeal to the king to come to the rescue of his captive subjects. The petition, if ever it came to Philip, fell upon deaf ears; and the arch-plotter, disappointed but undeterred, sent a secret message to Don Martin de Cordova, the Governor of Oran, praying him to provide men to assist in a general escape. The miscarriage of this adventure, through the capture and death of the messenger, brought Cervantes once more within an ace of the rod and the halter, but the irrepressible schemer was presently surprised in hatching still another device to obtain his liberty, and had to seek refuge with a friend from the rage of the viceroy. A proclamation, threatening instant death to anyone sheltering the fugitive, was published in Algiers, and rather than expose his concealer to this danger, Cervantes voluntarily presented himself before Hassan Pasha, who vainly endeavoured, by threats of torture and death, to extort from him the names of his accomplices.