The Catholic soldiers, on the other hand, elated by their past success, regarded themselves as invincible, and never for a moment doubted the {192} certainty of their triumph. They were commanded, also, by leaders to whom they were devotedly attached: Ponce de Leon, marquis of Cadiz, Henry de Guzman, duke of Medina, Mendoza, Aguillar, Villena, and Gonzalvo of Cordova, together with many other famous captains, accompanied their victorious king. Isabella, too, whose virtues excited the highest respect, and whose affability and grace won for her the affectionate regard of all, had repaired to the camp of her husband with the Infant and the Infantas, and attended by the most brilliant court in Europe. This politic princess, though naturally grave and serious, wisely accommodated herself to the existing circumstances. She mingled fetes and amusements with warlike toil: jousts and tournaments delighted at intervals the war-worn soldiery; and dances, games, and illuminations filled up the delicious summer evenings. Queen Isabella was the animating genius that directed everything; a gracious word from her was a sufficient recompense for the most gallant achievement; and her look alone had power to transform the meanest soldier into a hero. Abundance reigned in the Christian camp; {193} while joy and hope animated every heart. But within the beleaguered city, mutual distrust, universal consternation, and the prospect of inevitable destruction, had damped the courage and almost annihilated the hopes of the wretched inhabitants. The siege, nevertheless, lasted for nine months. The cautious commander of the Christian army did not attempt to carry by assault a place so admirably fortified. After having laid waste the environs, therefore, he waited patiently until famine should deliver the city into his hands. Satisfied with battering the ramparts and repelling the frequent sorties of the Moors, he never engaged in any decisive action, but daily hemmed in more closely the chafed lion that could not now escape his toils. Accident one night set fire to the pavilion of Isabella, and the spreading conflagration consumed every tent in the camp. But Boabdil derived no advantage from this disaster. The queen directed that a city should supply the place of the ruined camp, to convince the enemies of the cross that the siege would never be raised until Grenada should come into possession of the conquering Spaniards. This great and {194} extraordinary design, so worthy the genius of Isabella, was executed in eighty days. The Christian camp thus became a walled city; and Santa Fe still exists as a monument of the piety and perseverance of the heroic Queen of Castile. At last, oppressed by famine, less frequently successful than at first in the partial engagements that were constantly taking place under the walls, and abandoned by Africa, from which there were no attempts made to relieve them, the Moors now felt the necessity of a surrender.