triumphant in the dark air, and penetrate into the deepest recesses of the Moorish patios, where every Moslem has shut himself up in black despair.
“There was a crying in Granada
When the sun was going down;
Some calling on the Trinity,
Some calling on Mahomet.
Thus cried the Moslem while his hands
His own beard did tear:
‘Farewell! farewell, Granada!
Thou city without peer!
Woe! woe! thou pride of Heathendom,
Seven hundred years and more
Have gone, since first the faithful
Thy royal sceptre bore.’ ”
At the door of the great mosque, the same on which the harebrained knight of Pulgar with his fifteen companions as wild as himself had fixed the tablet with the words Ave Maria, they halted. Like the chapel, it had been hastily consecrated. Here the sovereigns offered up prayer and thanksgiving.
In what part of the present cathedral did this occur? At what is now the high altar, or within the Capilla Real?
Did any wandering spirit whisper into the ear of the still beautiful queen, in the swell of the triumphant anthems which rise to celebrate her fame, that there she would lie entombed with Ferdinand by her side?
The first interview of Columbus with the queen took place in the middle of the Moorish war, when all available revenues were absorbed.
It was the Andalusian Fray Perez de Marchena, who sent him to Santa Fé, recommending him to the Bishop of Talavera, a learned prelate, at that time confessor to the queen and shortly to become Archbishop of Granada.
It was Talavera who presided at the council of Salamanca, before which Columbus exhibited his charts and detailed his projects.