two brothers; in the two years and a half that had gone since they had
parted a great deal had happened to them; and they both knew a good deal
more about the great question in which they, were interested than they
had known when last they talked.

It is to this period that I attribute the inception, if not the
execution, of the forgery of the Toscanelli correspondence, if, as I
believe, it was a forgery. Christopher's unpleasant experiences before
learned committees and commissions had convinced him that unless he were
armed with some authoritative and documentary support for his theories
they had little chance of acceptance by the learned. The, Idea was
right; he knew that; but before he could convince the academic mind, he
felt that it must have the imprimatur of a mind whose learning could not
be impugned. Therefore it is not an unfair guess--and it can be nothing
more than a guess--that Christopher and Bartholomew at this point laid
their heads together, and decided that the next time Christopher had to
appear before a commission he would, so to speak, have something "up his
sleeve." It was a risky thing to do, and must in any case be used only
as a very last resource; which would account for the fact that the
Toscanelli correspondence was never used at all, and is not mentioned in
any document known to men written until long after Columbus's death.

But these summers and winters of suspense are at last drawing to a close,
and we must follow Christopher rapidly through them until the hour of his
triumph. He was back in Spain in the spring of 1489, his travelling
expenses being defrayed out of the royal purse; and a little later he was
once more amid scenes of war at the siege of Baza, and, if report is
true, taking a hand himself, not without distinction. It was there that
he saw the two friars from the convent of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem, who brought a message from the Grand Soldan of Egypt,
threatening the destruction of the Sepulchre if the Spanish sovereigns
did not desist from the war against Granada; and it was there that in his
simple and pious mind he formed the resolve that if ever his efforts
should be crowned with success, and he himself become rich and powerful,
he would send a crusade for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. And it was
there that, on the 22nd of December, he saw Boabdil, the elder of the two
rival Kings of Granada, surrender all his rights and claims to Spain.
Surely now t