At last he decided to make one more attempt before giving it up in Spain.  His money was gone; his friends were few; but he remembered his acquaintances at Palos and so he journeyed back to see once more his good friend Friar Juan Perez at the Convent of Rabida on the hill that looked out upon the Atlantic he was so anxious to cross.

It was in the month of November, 1491, that he went back to the Convent of Rabida.  If he could not get any encouragement there, he was determined to stay in Spain no longer but to go away and try the king of France.

Once more he talked over the finding of Cathay with the priests and the sailors of Palos.  They saw how patient he was; how persistent he was; how he would never give up his ideas until he had tried them.  They were moved by his determination.  They began to believe in him more and more.  They resolved to help him.  One of the principal sea captains of Palos was named Martin Alonso Pinzon.  He became so interested that he offered to lend Columbus money enough to make one last appeal to the king and queen of Spain, and if Columbus should succeed with them, this Captain Pinzon said that he would go into partnership with Columbus and help him out when it came to getting ready to sail to Cathay.

This was a move in the right direction.  At once a messenger was sent to the splendid Spanish camp before the city of Granada, the last unconquered city of the Moors of Spain.  The king and queen of Spain had been so long trying to capture Granada that this camp was really a city, with gates and walls and houses.  It was called Santa Fe.  Queen Isabella, who was in Santa Fe, after some delay, agreed to hear more about the crazy scheme of this persistent Genoese sailor, and the Friar Juan Perez was sent for.  He talked so well in behalf of his friend Columbus that the queen became still more interested.  She ordered Columbus to come and see her, and sent him sixty-five dollars to pay for a mule, a new suit of clothes and the journey to court.

About Christmas time, in the year 1491, Columbus, mounted upon his mule, rode into the Spanish camp before the city of Granada.  But even now, when he had been told to come, he had to wait.  Granada was almost captured; the Moors were almost conquered.  At last the end came.  On the second of January, 1492, the Moorish king gave up the keys of his beloved city, and the great Spanish banner was hoisted on the highest tower of the Alhambra—­the handsomest building in Granada and one of the most beautiful in the world.  The Moors were driven out of Spain and Columbus’s chance had come.

So he appeared before Queen Isabella and her chief men and told them again of all his plans and desires.  The queen and her advisers sat in a great room in that splendid Alhambra I have told you of.  King Ferdinand was not there.  He did not believe in Columbus and did not wish to let him have either money, ships or sailors to lose in such a foolish way.  But as Columbus stood before her and talked so earnestly about how he expected to find the Indies and Cathay and what he hoped to bring away from there, Queen Isabella listened and thought the plan worth trying.