.

-- TWO SAD YEARS.
-- ISABELLA'S DEATH--COLUMBUS AT SEVILLE--HIS ILLNESS--LETTERS TO THE KING--JOURNEYS TO SEGOVIA, SALAMANCA, AND VALLADOLID--HIS SUIT THERE--PHILIP AND JUANA--COLUMBUS EXECUTES HIS WILL--DIES--HIS BURIAL AND THE REMOVAL OF HIS BODY--HIS PORTRAITS--HIS CHARACTER.
Columbus had been absent from Spain two years and six months.

He returned broken in health, and the remaining two years of his life are only the sad history of his effort to relieve his name from dishonor and to leave to his sons a fair opportunity to carry forward his work in the world.
Isabella, alas, died on the twenty-sixth day of November, only a short time after his arrival.

Ferdinand, at the least, was cold and hard toward him, and Ferdinand was now engaged in many affairs other than those of discovery.

He was satisfied that Columbus did not know how to bring gold home from the colonies, and the promises of the last voyage, that they should strike the East, had not been fulfilled.
Isabella had testified her kindly memory of Columbus, even while he was in exile at Jamaica, by making him one of the body-guard of her oldest son, an honorary appointment which carried with it a handsome annual salary.