DON QUIXOTE

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recovered liberty and the dread of losing it again efface from the memory
all the obligations in the world. And to prove the truth of what he said,
he told us briefly what had happened to a certain Christian gentleman
almost at that very time, the strangest case that had ever occurred even
there, where astonishing and marvellous things are happening every
instant. In short, he ended by saying that what could and ought to be
done was to give the money intended for the ransom of one of us
Christians to him, so that he might with it buy a vessel there in Algiers
under the pretence of becoming a merchant and trader at Tetuan and along
the coast; and when master of the vessel, it would be easy for him to hit
on some way of getting us all out of the bano and putting us on board;
especially if the Moorish lady gave, as she said, money enough to ransom
all, because once free it would be the easiest thing in the world for us
to embark even in open day; but the greatest difficulty was that the
Moors do not allow any renegade to buy or own any craft, unless it be a
large vessel for going on roving expeditions, because they are afraid
that anyone who buys a small vessel, especially if he be a Spaniard, only