y
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 Caesars, 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 progress through the realm of Spain, and the emerald table,
whose fame had reached the shores of Africa, was sought by him far and
near.

It had disappeared from the church, perhaps carried off by the bishop in
his flight. But fast as the fugitives fled, faster rode the Arab horsemen
on their track, one swift troop riding to Medina Celi, on the high road to
Saragossa. On this route they came to a city named by them
Medinatu-l-Mayidah (city of the table), in which they found the famous
talisman. They brought it to Tarik as one of the choicest spoils of Spain.

Its later history is as curious and much more authentic than its earlier.
Tarik, as we have told in the previous tale, had been sent to Andalusia by
Musa, the caliph's vice