n hardly read. I feel myself
like one who lives, knowing the inevitable future, and yet is powerless
to help. I see the acts of the poor human puppets, and know the disaster
that must follow. I wonder if the Calvinists ever realised the agony of
that dark God of theirs, omniscient and yet so strangely weak, to whom
the eternal majesty of heaven was insufficient to save the predestined
from everlasting death.

* * *

On March 22, 1491, began the last siege of Granada.

Ferdinand marched his army into the plain and began to destroy the
crops, taking one by one the surrounding towns. He made no attempt upon
the city itself, and hostilities were confined to skirmishes beneath the
walls and single combats between Christian knights and Muslim cavaliers,
wherein on either side prodigies of valour were performed. Through the
summer the Moors were able to get provisions from the Sierra Nevada, but
when, with winter, the produce of the earth grew less and its conveyance
more difficult, famine began to make itself felt. The Moors consoled
themselves with the hope that the besieging army would retire with the
cold weather, for such in those days was the rule of warfare; but
Ferdinand was in earnest. When an accidental fire burned his camp, he
built him a town of solid stone and mortar, which he named Santa Fe. It
stands still, the only town in Spain wherein a Moorish foot has never
trod. Then the Muslims understood at last that the Spaniard would never
again leave that fruitful land.

And presently they began to talk of surrender; Spanish gold worked its
way with Boabdil's councillors, and before winter was out the
capitulation was signed.

On the second day of the new year the final scene of the tragedy was
acted. Early in the morning, before break of day, Boabdil had sent his
mother and his wife with the treasure to precede him to the Alpuxarras,
in which district, by the conditions of the treaty, Ferdinand had
assigned him a little kingdom. Himself had one more duty to perform, and
at the prearranged hour he sallied forth with a wretched escort of fifty
knights. On the Spanish side the night had been spent in joy and
feasting; but how must Boabdil have spent his, thinking of the
inevitable morrow? To him the hours must have sped like minutes. What
must have been the agony of his last look at the Alhambra, that jewel of
incalculable price? Mendoza, the cardinal, had been sent forward to
occupy the palace, and Boabdil passed