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

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.