Luis de Santangel, treasurer of King Ferdinand's realm of Aragon, determined to go and talk it over with the queen who, apparently, had not been present at the recent hearing of Columbus. To apply further to Ferdinand would have been useless, for he had vowed he would have nothing more to do with the matter. Isabella possessed more imagination than her husband, and to this imagination Santangel thought he could appeal. First he pointed out that Columbus's very stubbornness about rewards might be taken as proof that he was certain to find whatever he promised to find; then he reminded her that the navigator was a very devout man, and that in his enterprise there was a strong religious motive; should he discover new lands, not only would their heathen population be converted to Christianity, but their commerce would make Spain so wealthy that she could undertake a new crusade and conquer the infidels who held the Holy Sepulchre. This possibility impressed Isabella profoundly, for she and her husband were the stanchest defenders of Christianity in all Europe. Now that Santangel had roused her imagination, he proceeded to make the whole matter clear by a practical suggestion as to ways and means. He reminded his royal listener that Columbus had offered to raise one eighth of the expense of the expedition (Columbus having repeated the offer made at La Rabida by Pinzon); and as for the remainder, he, Santangel, would be responsible for it. Either he would lend it himself (he belonged to one of the rich Jewish families that had become Christian) or he would induce King Ferdinand to allow it to be taken from the Aragon treasury and repaid later. (Ferdinand, apparently, was not such an unmanageable person, after all.) Right here is where the story of Isabella pledging her jewels would come in if there were sufficient reasons for believing it, but there is little proof of it; indeed, rather more against it. Not only did Santangel show the queen how the money could be obtained otherwise, but, as she had already pledged much of her jewelry in Valencia and Barcelona in order to aid the Moorish war, her husband's treasurer would surely have deterred her from parting with more. However, she was now so enthusiastic over Columbus's affair that she undoubtedly would have made some such offer had no other means of raising the money been found. The queen knew that her husband disapproved of the would-be discoverer's high terms; she knew that all the grandees of the kingdom disapproved; she knew that the expedition might end in failure and bring down ridicule on her head; and yet she rose and cried in ringing tones, "Bring the man back! I will undertake this thing for my own crown of Castile."