Historical Tales, Volume VII | Page 8

valor, and telling them that the enemy was a low rabble of
heathens, abhorred of God and men. "Remember," he said, "the valor
of your ancestors and the holy Christian faith, for whose defence we are
fighting." Then he sprang from his chariot, put on his horned helmet,
mounted his war-horse Orelia, and took his station in the field,
prepared to fight like a soldier and a king.
For two days the battle consisted of a series of skirmishes. At the end
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 Cæsars, 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