Marchena at once wrote an eloquent letter to Queen Isabella, and intrusted it to a pilot whose relations with the court rendered him a safe and reliable messenger. He gave the missive into the hands of the queen, and returned to the monastery the bearer of an invitation to Marchena to repair at once to Santa Fe, where the court then was, engaged in investing Grenada. Columbus borrowed a mule for the friar, who left secretly at midnight and arrived safely at Santa Fe. That Isabella should, at such a moment, when engaged in war and harassed by financial embarrassments, listen to a proposition which had been twice condemned by a learned body of men, is a circumstance which entitles her in the highest degree to a share in the glory which her protégé Columbus was, through her, destined to obtain. She received Marchena graciously, and instructed him to summon Columbus, to whom she sent twenty thousand maravedis--seventy dollars, nearly--with which to purchase a horse and a proper dress in which to appear before her. Columbus arrived at Santa Fe just before the surrender of Grenada and the termination of the struggle between the Crescent and the Cross. He was present at the delivery of the keys of the city and the abandonment of the Alhambra to Isabella by the Moorish king, Boabdil el Chico. After the official rejoicings, the queen gave audience to Columbus. As she already believed in the practicability of the scheme, the only subjects to be discussed were the means of execution, and the recompense to be awarded to Columbus in case of success. A committee was appointed to consider this latter point. Columbus fixed his conditions as follows: He should receive the title of Grand Admiral of the Ocean: He should be Viceroy and Governor-General of all islands and mainlands he might discover: He should levy a tax for his own benefit upon all productions--whether spices, fruits, perfumes, gold, silver, pearls, or diamonds--discovered in, or exported from, the lands under his authority: And his titles should be transmissible in his family, forever, by the laws of primogeniture. These conditions, being such as would place the threadbare solicitor above the noblest house in Spain, were treated with derision by the committee, and Columbus was regarded as an insolent braggart. He would not abate one tittle of his claims, though, after eighteen years of fruitless effort, he now saw all his hopes at the point of being again dashed to earth. He mounted his mule, and departed for Cordova before quitting Spain forever.