Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/527

381 the two ings. MILITARY POLICY OF THE SOVEREIGNS. 381 Ferdinand, and to surrender his own son, with the chapter XI. children of his principal nobility, as sureties for his '- — fulfilment of the treaty. Thus did the unhappy prince barter away his honor and his country's freedom for the possession of immediate, but most precarious sovereignty ; a sovereignty, which could scarcely be expected to survive the period when he could be useful to the master whose breath had made him. ^ The terms of the treaty being thus definitively interview ^ a •/ between settled, an interview was arranged to take place ^^^ between the two monarchs at Cordova. The Cas- tilian courtiers would have persuaded their master to offer his hand for Abdallah to salute, in token of his feudal supremacy ; but Ferdinand replied, " Were the king of Granada in his own domin- ions, I might do this ; but not while he is a prisoner in mine." The Moorish prince entered Cordova with an escort of his own knights, and a splendid throng of Spanish chivalry, who had marched out of the city to receive him. When Abdallah enter- ed the royal presence, he would have prostrated himself on his knees ; but Ferdinand, hastening to prevent him, embraced him with every demon- stration of respect. An Arabic interpreter, who acted as orator, then expatiated, in florid hyper- bole, on the magnanimity and princely qualities of the Spanish king, and the loyalty and good faith of his own master. But Ferdinand interrupted his 9 Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, ubi supra. — Conde, Domiaacioa de los Arabes, cap. 36.