r stood on the lofty tower of the Alhambra (says Antonio
Agapida) grinding his teeth and foaming like a tiger shut up in his cage
as he beheld the glittering battalions of the Christians wheeling about
the Vega, and the standard of the cross shining forth from among the
smoke of infidel villages and hamlets. The most Catholic king (continues
Agapida) would gladly have continued this righteous ravage, but his
munitions began to fail. Satisfied, therefore, with having laid waste
the country of the enemy and insulted Muley Abul Hassan in his very
capital, he returned to Cordova covered with laurels and his army
laden with spoils, and now bethought himself of coming to an immediate
decision in regard to his royal prisoner.

CHAPTER XX.

OF THE TREATMENT OF BOABDIL BY THE CASTILIAN SOVEREIGNS.

A stately convention was held by King Ferdinand in the ancient city of
Cordova, composed of several of the most reverend prelates and renowned
cavaliers of the kingdom, to determine upon the fate of the unfortunate
Boabdil.

Don Alonso de Cardenas, the worthy master of Santiago, was one of the
first who gave his counsel. He was a pious and zealous knight, rigid
in his devotion to the faith, and his holy zeal had been inflamed to
peculiar vehemence since his disastrous crusade among the mountains of
Malaga. He inveighed with ardor against any compromise or compact
with the infidels: the object of this war, he observed, was not the
subjection of the Moors, but their utter expulsion from the land,
so that there might no longer remain a single stain of Mahometanism
throughout Christian Spain. He gave it as his opinion, therefore, that
the captive king ought not to be set at liberty.

Roderigo Ponce de Leon, marques of Cadiz, on the contrary, spoke warmly
for the release of Boabdil. He pronounced it a measure of sound policy,
even if done without conditions. It would tend to keep up the civil war
in Granada, which was as a fire consuming the entrails of the enemy, and
effecting more for the interests of Spain, without expense, than all the
conquests of its arms.

The grand cardinal of Spain, Don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, coincided
in opinion with the marques of Cadiz. Nay (added that pious prelate and
politic statesman), it would be sound wisdom to furnish the Moor with
men and money and all other necessaries to promote the civil war in
Granada: by this means would be produced great benefit to the service of
God, since we are