“If you think,” exclaimed one of them, “that the Christians will remain faithful to what they have promised, or that their sovereign will prove as generous a conqueror as he has been a valiant enemy, you deceive yourselves.” His contemptuous refusal to have part or parcel in the transaction was echoed through the streets. “Traitors and cowards all!” cried an old dervish, gathering behind him the more excitable element of the town; and soon a mob was beating on the gates of the Alhambra. Boabdil succeeded in restoring order; but the fear of another riot made him hastily dispatch a letter to Ferdinand and Isabel, asking them in view of his critical position to take possession of the town some days earlier than they had settled. His interest in smoothing out all difficulties is explained by the secret stipulations affixed to the general terms of surrender. By these he and his immediate relations were to keep the lands that already formed their private patrimony, while he himself was to receive in addition the lordship and revenue of a large district in the Alpujarras, the sovereigns paying him the sum of thirty thousand castellanos on the day of their entry. Thus Boabdil hoped to buy peace, and in the guise of a territorial magnate to free himself from the unlucky star that had haunted his path as King.[3] On the 2d of January, 1492, at the signal of a cannon fired from the Alhambra he left for ever the palace that had been the scene of so many vicissitudes in his life. At the same moment the Christian army in festival attire, with banners flying and amid the blare of trumpets issued from the gates of Santa Fé; the Cardinal of Spain and Don Gutierre de Cardenas leading the triumphal march that was to end at last in the goal of all their ambitions. Footnote 3: Boabdil, like his uncle “El Zagal,” finally sold his patrimony to the Catholic sovereigns and sailed to Africa. He was killed in a battle some years later fighting on behalf of the King of Fez against an African tribe. The two Kings met on the banks of the Genil, where Boabdil would have knelt to kiss the other’s hand, had not Ferdinand with quick courtesy prevented him. “Take these, Señor, for I and all in the city are thine,” exclaimed the Moor, as in profound melancholy he yielded up the keys of his capital. Then he passed on his way. As the turrets of the Alhambra grew dim behind him, the vanguard of the Christian army crossed its threshhold; and Ferdinand and Isabel without the gate saw raised on the Tower of Colmares, first, the silver cross that had been blessed at Rome, and then the royal banner and the standard of Santiago.