"The queen (he spoke of Irene) considered you as a rook, and herself as a pawn.

That pusillanimous female submitted to pay a tribute, the double of which she ought to have exacted from the Barbarians.

Restore therefore the fruits of your injustice, or abide the determination of the sword." At these words the ambassadors cast a bundle of swords before the foot of the throne.

The caliph smiled at the menace, and drawing his cimeter, _samsamah_, a weapon of historic or fabulous renown, he cut asunder the feeble arms of the Greeks, without turning the edge, or endangering the temper, of his blade.

He then dictated an epistle of tremendous brevity: "In the name of the most merciful God, Harun al Rashid, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog.