Again no definite answer was
given, but again he made a powerful friend. This time it was the
Marchioness of Moya, the queen's dearest companion; and when, soon
after, this lady was wounded by a Moorish assassin who mistook her for
the queen, we may be sure that Isabella's affection deepened; and that,
in gratitude, she listened readily when the kind-hearted marchioness
praised the Genoese navigator.
From the surrender of Malaga until that of Granada, the last Moorish
city, Ferdinand and Isabella were ever busy,--sometimes in the south
with their armies, sometimes attending to general government affairs in
various cities of the north. All this time they were having hard work to
raise war funds. It would not be strange, therefore, if they felt unable
to spend money on Columbus's doubtful scheme, or if they told him that
it would be impossible further to consider his project until the Moorish
war should terminate.
CHAPTER VI
A RAY OF HOPE
Until the Moorish war should end!
Imagine the disappointment of this man who had been trying for years to
prove that lands lay far across the Atlantic, yet no one cared enough
about his grand idea to give him a few ships! Who could tell when the
Moorish war would end? And who could tell whether it would end in favor
of the Spanish? Why, he must have asked himself, should he, no longer
young, wait to see?
Accordingly, in the spring of 1488 he wrote, so he says, to the king of
Portugal asking permission to return.
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