All this lengthy discourse Don Quixote delivered while the otherssupped, forgetting
to raise a morsel to his lips, though Sancho morethan once told him to eat his supper,
as he would have time enoughafterwards to say all he wanted. It excited fresh pity
in those whohad heard him to see a man of apparently sound sense, and withrational
views on every subject he discussed, so hopelessly wanting inall, when his wretched
unlucky chivalry was in question. The curatetold him he was quite right in all he
had said in favour of arms,and that he himself, though a man of letters and a graduate,
was ofthe same opinion.
They finished their supper, the cloth was removed, and while thehostess, her
daughter, and Maritornes were getting Don Quixote of LaMancha's garret ready, in
which it was arranged that the women were tobe quartered by themselves for the night,
Don Fernando begged thecaptive to tell them the story of his life, for it could
not fail tobe strange and interesting, to judge by the hints he had let fall onhis
arrival in company with Zoraida. To this the captive repliedthat he would very willingly
yield to his request, only he fearedhis tale would not give them as much pleasure
as he wished;nevertheless, not to be wanting in compliance, he would tell it. Thecurate
and the others thanked him and added their entreaties, and hefinding himself so
pressed said there was no occasion ask, where acommand had such weight, and added,
"If your worships will give meyour attention you will hear a true story which, perhaps,
fictitiousones constructed with ingenious and studied art cannot come up to."These
words made them settle themselves in their places and preserve adeep silence, and
he seeing them waiting on his words in muteexpectation, began thus in a pleasant
quiet voice.
CHAPTER XXXIX
WHEREIN THE CAPTIVE RELATES HIS LIFE AND ADVENTURES
My family had its origin in a village in the mountains of Leon,and nature had
been kinder and more generous to it than fortune;though in the general poverty of
those communities my father passedfor being even a rich man; and he would have been
so in reality had hebeen as clever in preserving his property as he was in spending
it.This tendency of his to be liberal and profuse he had acquired fromhaving been
a soldier in his youth, for the soldier's life is a schoolin which the niggard becomes
free-handed and the free-handed prodigal;and if any soldiers are to be found who
are misers, they aremonsters of rare occurrence. My father went beyond liberality
andbordered on prodigality, a disposition by no means advantageous to amarried man
who has children to succeed to his name and position. Myfather had three, all sons,
and all of sufficient age to make choiceof a profession. Finding, then, that he
was unable to resist hispropensity, he resolved to divest himself of the instrument
andcause of his prodigality and lavishness, to divest himself ofwealth, without
which Alexander himself would have seemedparsimonious; and so calling us all three
aside one day into a room,he addressed us in words somewhat to the following effect:
"My sons, to assure you that I love you, no more need be known orsaid than that
you are my sons; and to encourage a suspicion that I donot love you, no more is
needed than the knowledge that I have noself-control as far as preservation of your
patrimony is concerned;therefore, that you may for the future feel sure that I love
youlike a father, and have no wish to ruin you like a stepfather, Ipropose to do
with you what I have for some time back meditated, andafter mature deliberation
decided upon. You are now of an age tochoose your line of life or at least make
choice of a calling thatwill bring you honour and profit when you are older; and
what I haveresolved to do is to divide my property into four parts; three Iwill
give to you, to each his portion without making any difference,and the other I will
retain to live upon and support myself forwhatever remainder of life Heaven may
be pleased to grant me. But Iwish each of you on taking possession of the share
that falls to himto follow one of the paths I shall indicate. In this Spain of oursthere
is a proverb, to my mind very true- as they all are, being shortaphorisms drawn
from long practical experience- and the one I refer tosays, 'The church, or the
sea, or the king's house;' as much as tosay, in plainer language, whoever wants
to flourish and become rich,let him follow the church, or go to sea, adopting commerce
as hiscalling, or go into the king's service in his household, for they say,'Better
a king's crumb than a lord's favour.' I say so because it ismy will and pleasure
that one of you should follow letters, anothertrade, and the third serve the king
in the wars, for it is a difficultmatter to gain admission to his service in his
household, and if wardoes not bring much wealth it confers great distinction and
fame.Eight days hence I will give you your full shares in money, withoutdefrauding
you of a farthing, as you will see in the end. Now tellme if you are willing to
follow out my idea and advice as I havelaid it before you."
Having called upon me as the eldest to answer, I, after urging himnot to strip
himself of his property but to spend it all as hepleased, for we were young men
able to gain our living, consented tocomply with his wishes, and said that mine
were to follow theprofession of arms and thereby serve God and my king. My secondbrother
having made the same proposal, decided upon going to theIndies, embarking the portion
that fell to him in trade. The youngest,and in my opinion the wisest, said he would
rather follow thechurch, or go to complete his studies at Salamanca. As soon as
wehad come to an understanding, and made choice of our professions, myfather embraced
us all, and in the short time he mentioned carriedinto effect all he had promised;
and when he had given to each hisshare, which as well as I remember was three thousand
ducats apiece incash (for an uncle of ours bought the estate and paid for it down,
notto let it go out of the family), we all three on the same day tookleave of our
good father; and at the same time, as it seemed to meinhuman to leave my father
with such scanty means in his old age, Iinduced him to take two of my three thousand
ducats, as theremainder would be enough to provide me with all a soldier needed.My
two brothers, moved by my example, gave him each a thousand ducats,so that there
was left for my father four thousand ducats in money,besides three thousand, the
value of the portion that fell to himwhich he preferred to retain in land instead
of selling it. Finally,as I said, we took leave of him, and of our uncle whom I
havementioned, not without sorrow and tears on both sides, they chargingus to let
them know whenever an opportunity offered how we fared,whether well or ill. We promised
to do so, and when he had embraced usand given us his blessing, one set out for
Salamanca, the other forSeville, and I for Alicante, where I had heard there was
a Genoesevessel taking in a cargo of wool for Genoa.
It is now some twenty-two years since I left my father's house,and all that time,
though I have written several letters, I have hadno news whatever of him or of my
brothers; my own adventures duringthat period I will now relate briefly. I embarked
at Alicante, reachedGenoa after a prosperous voyage, and proceeded thence to Milan,where
I provided myself with arms and a few soldier's accoutrements;thence it was my intention
to go and take service in Piedmont, butas I was already on the road to Alessandria
della Paglia, I learnedthat the great Duke of Alva was on his way to Flanders. I
changed myplans, joined him, served under him in the campaigns he made, waspresent
at the deaths of the Counts Egmont and Horn, and waspromoted to be ensign under
a famous captain of Guadalajara, Diegode Urbina by name. Some time after my arrival
in Flanders news came ofthe league that his Holiness Pope Pius V of happy memory,
had madewith Venice and Spain against the common enemy, the Turk, who had justthen
with his fleet taken the famous island of Cyprus, whichbelonged to the Venetians,
a loss deplorable and disastrous. It wasknown as a fact that the Most Serene Don
John of Austria, naturalbrother of our good king Don Philip, was coming ascommander-in-chief
of the allied forces, and rumours were abroad ofthe vast warlike preparations which
were being made, all which stirredmy heart and filled me with a longing to take
part in the campaignwhich was expected; and though I had reason to believe, and
almostcertain promises, that on the first opportunity that presenteditself I should
be promoted to be captain, I preferred to leave alland betake myself, as I did,
to Italy; and it was my good fortune thatDon John had just arrived at Genoa, and
was going on to Naples to jointhe Venetian fleet, as he afterwards did at Messina.
I may say, inshort, that I took part in that glorious expedition, promoted bythis
time to be a captain of infantry, to which honourable charge mygood luck rather
than my merits raised me; and that day- sofortunate for Christendom, because then
all the nations of the earthwere disabused of the error under which they lay in
imagining theTurks to be invincible on sea-on that day, I say, on which the Ottomanpride
and arrogance were broken, among all that were there madehappy (for the Christians
who died that day were happier than thosewho remained alive and victorious) I alone
was miserable; for, insteadof some naval crown that I might have expected had it
been in Romantimes, on the night that followed that famous day I found myselfwith
fetters on my feet and manacles on my hands.
It happened in this way: El Uchali, the king of Algiers, a daringand successful
corsair, having attacked and taken the leadingMaltese galley (only three knights
being left alive in it, and theybadly wounded), the chief galley of John Andrea,
on board of which Iand my company were placed, came to its relief, and doing as
was boundto do in such a case, I leaped on board the enemy's galley, which,sheering
off from that which had attacked it, prevented my men fromfollowing me, and so I
found myself alone in the midst of myenemies, who were in such numbers that I was
unable to resist; inshort I was taken, covered with wounds; El Uchali, as you know,sirs,
made his escape with his entire squadron, and I was left aprisoner in his power,
the only sad being among so many filled withjoy, and the only captive among so many
free; for there were fifteenthousand Christians, all at the oar in the Turkish fleet,
thatregained their longed-for liberty that day.
They carried me to Constantinople, where the Grand Turk, Selim, mademy master
general at sea for having done his duty in the battle andcarried off as evidence
of his bravery the standard of the Order ofMalta. The following year, which was
the year seventy-two, I foundmyself at Navarino rowing in the leading galley with
the threelanterns. There I saw and observed how the opportunity of capturingthe
whole Turkish fleet in harbour was lost; for all the marines andjanizzaries that
belonged to it made sure that they were about to beattacked inside the very harbour,
and had their kits and pasamaques,or shoes, ready to flee at once on shore without
waiting to beassailed, in so great fear did they stand of our fleet. But Heavenordered
it otherwise, not for any fault or neglect of the generalwho commanded on our side,
but for the sins of Christendom, andbecause it was God's will and pleasure that
we should always haveinstruments of punishment to chastise us. As it was, El Uchali
tookrefuge at Modon, which is an island near Navarino, and landingforces fortified
the mouth of the harbour and waited quietly until DonJohn retired. On this expedition
was taken the galley called thePrize, whose captain was a son of the famous corsair
Barbarossa. Itwas taken by the chief Neapolitan galley called the She-wolf,commanded
by that thunderbolt of war, that father of his men, thatsuccessful and unconquered
captain Don Alvaro de Bazan, Marquis ofSanta Cruz; and I cannot help telling you
what took place at thecapture of the Prize.
The son of Barbarossa was so cruel, and treated his slaves so badly,that, when
those who were at the oars saw that the She-wolf galley wasbearing down upon them
and gaining upon them, they all at once droppedtheir oars and seized their captain
who stood on the stage at theend of the gangway shouting to them to row lustily;
and passing him onfrom bench to bench, from the poop to the prow, they so bit him
thatbefore he had got much past the mast his soul had already got to hell;so great,
as I said, was the cruelty with which he treated them, andthe hatred with which
they hated him.
We returned to Constantinople, and the following year,seventy-three, it became
known that Don John had seized Tunis andtaken the kingdom from the Turks, and placed
Muley Hamet inpossession, putting an end to the hopes which Muley Hamida, thecruelest
and bravest Moor in the world, entertained of returning toreign there. The Grand
Turk took the loss greatly to heart, and withthe cunning which all his race possess,
he made peace with theVenetians (who were much more eager for it than he was), and
thefollowing year, seventy-four, he attacked the Goletta and the fortwhich Don John
had left half built near Tunis. While all theseevents were occurring, I was labouring
at the oar without any hopeof freedom; at least I had no hope of obtaining it by
ransom, for Iwas firmly resolved not to write to my father telling him of mymisfortunes.
At length the Goletta fell, and the fort fell, beforewhich places there were seventy-five
thousand regular Turkishsoldiers, and more than four hundred thousand Moors and
Arabs from allparts of Africa, and in the train of all this great host suchmunitions
and engines of war, and so many pioneers that with theirhands they might have covered
the Goletta and the fort with handfulsof earth. The first to fall was the Goletta,
until then reckonedimpregnable, and it fell, not by any fault of its defenders,
who didall that they could and should have done, but because experimentproved how
easily entrenchments could be made in the desert sandthere; for water used to be
found at two palms depth, while theTurks found none at two yards; and so by means
of a quantity ofsandbags they raised their works so high that they commanded the
wallsof the fort, sweeping them as if from a cavalier, so that no one wasable to
make a stand or maintain the defence.