In this way I lived on immured in a building or prison called by the
Turks a bano in which they confine the Christian captives, as well those
that are the king's as those belonging to private individuals, and also
what they call those of the Almacen, which is as much as to say the
slaves of the municipality, who serve the city in the public works and
other employments; but captives of this kind recover their liberty with
great difficulty, for, as they are public property and have no particular
master, there is no one with whom to treat for their ransom, even though
they may have the means. To these banos, as I have said, some private
individuals of the town are in the habit of bringing their captives,
especially when they are to be ransomed; because there they can keep them
in safety and comfort until their ransom arrives. The king's captives
also, that are on ransom, do not go out to work with the rest of the
crew, unless when their ransom is delayed; for then, to make them write
for it more pressingly, they compel them to work and go for wood, which
is no light labour.
I, however, was one of those on ransom, for when it was discovered that I
was a captain, although I declared my scanty means and want of fortune,
nothing could dissuade them from including me among the gentlemen and
those waiting to be ransomed. They put a chain on me, more as a mark of
this than to keep me safe, and so I passed my life in that bano with
several other gentlemen and persons of quality marked out as held to
ransom; but though at times, or rather almost always, we suffered from
hunger and scanty clothing, nothing distressed us so much as hearing and
seeing at every turn the unexampled and unheard-of cruelties my master
inflicted upon the Christians. Every day he hanged a man, impaled one,
cut off the ears of another; and all with so little provocation, or so
entirely without any, that the Turks acknowledged he did it merely for
the sake of doing it, and because he was by nature murderously disposed
towards the whole human race. The only one that fared at all well with
him was a Spanish soldier, something de Saavedra by name, to whom he
never gave a blow himself, or ordered a blow to be given, or addressed a
hard word, although he had done things that will dwell in the memory of
the people there for many a year, and all to recover his liberty; and for
the least of the many things he did we all dreaded that he would be
impaled, and he himself was in fear of it more than once; and only that
time does not allow, I could tell you now something of what that soldier
did, that would interest and astonish you much more than the narration of
my own tale.