Granada had asked and been granted seventy days in which to envisage and accept her fate.

These were nearing the end.

Lost and beaten, haggard with woe and hunger and pestilence, the city stood over against us, above the naked plain, all her outer gardens stripped away, bare light striking the red Alhambra and the Citadel.

When the wind swept over her and on to Santa Fe it seemed to bring a sound of wailing and the faint and terrible odor of a long besieged place.
I came at eve into Santa Fe, found at last an inn of the poorer sort, ate scant supper and went to bed.

Dawn came with a great ringing of church bells.
Out of the inn, in the throbbing street, I began my search for Don Enrique de Cerda.