the Moorish
monarch. Being master, however, of all points of etiquette, he retained
an inflexible demeanor, and retired from the apartment with stately and
ceremonious gravity. His treatment was suited to his rank and dignity:
a magnificent apartment in the Alhambra was assigned to him, and before
his departure a scimetar was sent to him by the king, the blade of the
finest Damascus steel, the hilt of agate enriched with precious stones,
and the guard of gold. De Vera drew it, and smiled grimly as he noticed
the admirable temper of the blade. "His Majesty has given me a trenchant
weapon," said he: "I trust a time will come when I may show him that
I know how to use his royal present." The reply was considered a
compliment, of course: the bystanders little knew the bitter hostility
that lay couched beneath.

On his return to Cordova, Don Juan de Vera delivered the reply of the
Moor, but at the same time reported the state of his territories. These
had been strengthened and augmented during the weak reign of Henry
IV. and the recent troubles of Castile. Many cities and strong places
contiguous to Granada, but heretofore conquered by the Christians, had
renewed their allegiance to Muley Abul Hassan, so that his kingdom
now contained fourteen cities, ninety-seven fortified places, besides
numerous unwalled towns and villages defended by formidable castles,
while Granada towered in the centre as the citadel.

The wary Ferdinand, as he listened to the military report of Don Juan
de Vera, saw that the present was no time for hostilities with a warrior
kingdom so bristled over with means of defence. The internal discords
of Castile still continued, as did the war with Portugal: under these
circumstances he forbore to insist upon the payment of tribute, and
tacitly permitted the truce to continue; but the defiance contained
in the reply of Muley Abul Hassan remained rankling in his bosom as a
future ground of war; and De Vera's description of Granada as the centre
of a system of strongholds and rock-built castles suggested to him his
plan of conquest--by taking town after town and fortress after fortress,
and gradually plucking away all the supports before he attempted the
capital. He expressed his resolution in a memorable pun or play upon
the name of Granada, which signifies a pomegranate. "I will pick out
the seeds of this pomegranate one by one," said the cool and crafty
Ferdinand.

NOTE.--In the first edition of this wor