When Musa saw that they were about to sign the treaty of surrender, he rose in violent indignation:  “Do not deceive yourselves,” cried he, “nor think the Christians will be faithful to their promises, or their King as magnanimous in conquest as he has been victorious in war.  Death is the least we have to fear.  It is the plundering and sacking of our city, the profanation of our mosques, the ruin of our homes, the violation of our wives and daughters—­cruel oppression, bigoted intolerance, whips and chains, the dungeon, the fagot, and the stake—­such are the miseries and indignities we shall see and suffer; at least, those grovelling souls will see them who now shrink from an honorable death.  For my part, by Allah, I will never witness them!”

With these words he left the council chamber and strode gloomily through the Court of Lions and the outer halls of the Alhambra, without deigning to speak to the obsequious courtiers who attended in them.  He repaired to his dwelling, armed himself at all points, mounted his favorite war-horse, and, issuing forth from the city by the gate of Elvira, was never seen or heard of more.[3]

The capitulation for the surrender of Granada was signed on November 25, 1491, and produced a sudden cessation of those hostilities which had raged for so many years.  Christian and Moor might now be seen mingling courteously on the banks of the Xenel and the Darro, where to have met a few days previous would have produced a scene of sanguinary contest.  Still, as the Moors might be suddenly aroused to defence, if, within the allotted term of seventy days, succors should arrive from abroad, and as they were at all times a rash, inflammable people, the wary Ferdinand maintained a vigilant watch upon the city, and permitted no supplies of any kind to enter.  His garrisons in the seaports, and his cruisers in the Straits of Gibraltar, were ordered likewise to guard against any relief from the Grand Sultan of Egypt or the princes of Barbary.  There was no need of such precautions.  Those powers were either too much engrossed by their own wars or too much daunted by the success of the Spanish arms, to interfere in a desperate cause; and the unfortunate Moors of Granada were abandoned to their fate.

The month of December had nearly passed away; the famine became extreme, and there was no hope of any favorable event within the terms specified in the capitulation.  Boabdil saw that to hold out to the end of the allotted time would but be to protract the miseries of his people.  With the consent of his council, he determined to surrender the city on January 6th.  On December 30th he sent his grand vizier Yusef Aben Comixa, with the four hundred hostages, to King Ferdinand, to make known his intention; bearing him, at the same time, a present of a magnificent cimeter, and two Arabian steeds superbly caparisoned.