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Now when it was the Two Hundred and
Seventy-second Night,
238
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King,
that the grandees offered that King all their hands
possessed of monies and treasures if he would but
refrain; still he would not be baulked and said
“There is no help for it but I open this tower.” So
he pulled off the locks and entering, found within
the tower figures of Arabs on their horses and
camels, habited in turbands hanging down at the
ends, with swords in baldrick-belts thrown over
their shoulders and bearing long lances in their
hands. He found there also a scroll which he
greedily took and read, and these words were
written therein, “Whenas this door is opened will
conquer this country a raid of the Arabs, after the
likeness of the figures here depicted; wherefore
beware, and again beware of opening it.” Now
this city was in Andalusia; and that very year
Tárik ibn Ziyád conquered it, during the Caliphate
of Al-Walíd son of Abd al-Malik of the sons of
Umayyah; and slew this King after the sorriest
fashion and sacked the city and made prisoners of
the women and boys therein and got great loot.
Moreover, he found there immense treasures;
amongst the rest more than an hundred and
seventy crowns of pearls and jacinths and other
gems of price; and he found a saloon, wherein
horsemen might throw the spears, full of vessels
of gold and silver, such as no description can
comprise. Moreover, he found there the table of
food for the Prophet of Allah, Solomon, son of
David (peace with both of them!), which is extant
even now in a city of the Greeks, it is told that it
was of grass-green emerald with vessels of gold
and platters of jasper. Likewise he found the
Psalms written in the old Ionian characters on
leaves of gold bezel’d with jewels; together with a
book setting forth the properties of stones and
herbs and minerals, as well as the use of characts
and talismans and the canons of the art of
alchymy; and he found a third volume which
treated of the art of cutting and setting rubies and
other precious stones and of the preparation of