Historical Tales, Volume VII | Page 8

of that time the Christians had the advantage. Their numbers had told, and new courage came to their hearts. Tarik saw that defeat would be his lot if this continued, and on the morning of the third day he made a fiery appeal to his men, rousing their fanaticism and picturing the treasures and delights which victory would bring them. He ended with his war-cry of "Guala! Guala! Follow me, my warriors! I shall not stop until I reach the tyrant in the midst of his steel-clad warriors, and either kill him or he kill me!"
At the head of his men the dusky one-eyed warrior rushed with fiery energy upon the Gothic lines, cleaving his way through the ranks towards a general whose rich armor seemed to him that of the king. His impetuous charge carried him deep into their midst. The seeming king was before him. One blow and he fell dead; while the Moslems, crying that the king of the Goths was killed, followed their leader with resistless ardor into the hostile ranks. The Christians heard and believed the story, and lost heart as their enemy gained new energy.
At this critical moment, as we are told, Bishop Oppas, brother-in-law of the traitor Julian, drew off and joined the Moslem ranks. Whether this was the case or not, the charge of Tarik led the way to victory. He had pierced the Christian centre. The wings gave way before the onset of his chiefs. Resistance was at an end. In utter panic the soldiers flung away their arms and took to flight, heedless of the stores and treasures of their camp, thinking of nothing but safety, flying in all directions through the country, while the Moslems, following on their flying steeds, cut them down without mercy.
Roderic, the king, had disappeared. If slain in the battle, his body was never found. Wounded and despairing, he may have been slain in flight or been drowned in the stream. It was afterwards said that his war-horse, its golden saddle rich with rubies, was found riderless beside the stream, and that near by lay a royal crown and mantle, and a sandal embroidered with pearls and emeralds. But all we can safely say is that Roderic had vanished, his army was dispersed, and Spain was the prize of Tarik and the Moors, for resistance was quickly at an end, and they went on from victory to victory until the country was nearly all in their hands.

THE TABLE OF SOLOMON.
We have told how King Roderic, when he invaded the enchanted palace of Toledo, found in its empty chambers a single treasure,--the famous table of Solomon. But this was a treasure worth a king's ransom, a marvellous talisman, so splendid, so beautiful, so brilliant that the chroniclers can scarce find words fitly to describe its richness and value. Some say that it was made of pure gold, richly inlaid with precious stones. Others say that it was a mosaic of gold and silver, burnished yellow and gleaming white, ornamented with three rows of priceless jewels, one being of large pearls, one of costly rubies, and a third of gleaming emeralds. Other writers say that its top was made of a single emerald, a talisman revealing the fates in its lucid depths. Most writers say that it stood upon three hundred and sixty-five feet, each made of a single emerald, though still another writer declares that it had not a foot to stand upon.
Evidently none of these worthy chroniclers had seen the jewelled table except in the eye of fancy, which gave it what shape and form best fitted its far-famed splendor. They varied equally in their history of the talisman. A mildly drawn story says that it first came from Jerusalem to Rome, that it fell into the hands of the Goths when they sacked the city of the C?sars, and that some of them brought it into Spain. But there was a story more in accordance with the Arabian love of the marvellous which stated that the table was the work of the Djinn, or Genii, the mighty spirits of the air, whom the wise king Solomon had subdued and who obeyed his commands. After Solomon's time it was kept among the holy treasures of the temple, and became one of the richest spoils of the Romans when they captured and sacked Jerusalem. It afterwards became the prize of a king of Spain, perhaps in the way stated above.
Thus fancy has adorned the rich and beautiful work of art which Don Roderic is said to have found in the enchanted palace, and which he placed as the noblest of the treasures of Spain in the splendid church of Toledo, the Gothic capital. This city fell into the hands of Tarik el Tuerto in his conquering