TOLEDO
INTERIOR OF SANTA MARIA LA BLANCA.
PLATE XLVII.
Spandrils of Arches.
the table against future emergencies. Musa, who met Tarik with savage upbraidings for exceeding his instructions—and some go so far as to say that he supplemented his speech with strokes of his whip—demanded the production of Solomon’s table, and questioned Tarik as to the absence of the missing fourth foot. The wily general declared that he had found it in that condition, and Musa had the missing emerald supplied by a foot of gold. Subsequently Musa had Tarik cast into prison, and, it is said, that he would have encompassed his death but for the prompt intervention of the khalif, who sent peremptory commands that the successful campaigner should be restored to his command of the Moorish army. Thereupon Musa professed to restore Tarik to his confidence and friendship; but he must have regretted that he had not executed his original purpose, when, on the occasion of his presenting the famous table as his own discovery to the khalif at Damascus, Tarik proclaimed himself to be the discoverer, and, as proof of his contention, produced the missing emerald foot.