Part 8

"My comrade," urged he, "I have seen the enemy, and never on earth did such host appear. I pray thee, sound thy horn, that Karl may hear and return to our succor." But Roland answered:

"Such deed were madness! Lost in France would be my glory. My good sword shall seal the felons' fate."

"Nay, Roland, sound on thine ivory horn, that Karl may bend his legions back and lend us aid," exclaimed his wise companion. In vain he pleaded.

Nearer and nearer the Moslems swept, and Oliver exclaimed in reproach,--

"See, comrade, see how close are they, and help, alas, how far! The rear-guard will make their last brave stand this day!"

But Roland was drunk with the joy of battle and cried,--

"My friend, my brother, my Oliver, the emperor hath left us here his bravest. Full twenty-thousand men he gave to us, and among them no coward heart. I shall so strike with this matchless blade that he who wears it when I lie dead shall say, ''Twas the sword of a valorous captain.'"

The time was all too short--the Moslems were almost upon them. Archbishop Turpin, seeing their straits, spurred his horse to a jutting crag, and addressed the men. There was silence among the Franks as the voice of the beloved churchman rang through the hollow pass:

"Barons, we are here for our emperor's sake; strike we for him, though death be our portion." He stretched out his arms above them, and the Franks alighted and knelt on the ground, crying, "Mea culpa!" Then he assoiled them and blessed them, giving them for penance, to smite their best.

The next instant the storm of battle broke, and Paynim and Christian closed in the death-struggle, each hoping, believing, to find in the blood of the other his passport into Paradise; each with the name of God on his lips.

Well might the emperor bow his white head in woful fear, though the blue skies of his native France were smiling above him. Death stalked triumphant at Roncesvalles, and Frank and Saracen yielded him tribute till the pass was covered with the dying and the dead.

If only King Karl could have seen his knights that day, the glory of the sight would have blotted out its tragedy. Roland was proud, but there was none braver than he; and he flung himself upon the enemies of his king, his country, and his God with a fierce courage that none might withstand. Wherever his splendid form was seen, his followers greeted him with loud acclaim, and he cheered them on with their emperor's battle-cry,--"Montjoie, Saint Denis!"

No less courageous was his dear comrade. But no fierce joy impelled Oliver to the great deeds that he performed. He saw his duty, and met it like a true knight.

Nor were the ten others of the emperor's peers less zealous in his cause. Each gave his all for Charlemagne; and if that all was less than the mighty Roland gave, it was not the fault of the knight who pledged it.

Conspicuous in the fight was the great archbishop,--here blessing and assoiling according to his holy office; there rushing to the charge like the warrior that nature had made him, crying,--

"Strike, barons! Remember your chivalry!"

But not to the Franks alone belong all the glory and all the praise. The Moslem hosts that opposed them were "worthy of their steel,"--equally zealous in their own cause, equally certain of the approval of God.

Wilder and fiercer grew the strife, and Paynim and Christian mingled together in dire confusion. At length the Moslem ranks wavered for an instant, gave back a little, and then broke in panic. And a pitiful remnant of the mighty host of King Marsilius fled from the field, leaving slain in the pass the great body of that once proud army. But even this remnant did not escape, for they were followed by the Christians; and only one, wounded and bleeding, escaped to tell King Marsilius the story of his woful loss.

Nearly an hundred thousand Moslems lay dead in the pass of Roncesvalles. But they had sold their lives full dearly. Beneath, above, and beside them were piled the flower of the Frankish army--Christian and Paynim, asleep on one mother's breast, unheedful alike of triumph and defeat.

In spite of the fact that theirs had been the places of greatest danger all through the battle, Roland and Oliver and the good archbishop had escaped unhurt; and they and their comrades betook them to the sad duty of searching the bloody field for their best-beloved dead. Long they had wandered thus among the dead and dying, when a mighty blast of trumpets smote on their ears.

"O God, our Father, what straits are ours!" they cried, as looking up they beheld in the distance another Saracen host, greater by far than the one they had crushed, bearing down upon them.

Now happened a thing most wondrous to tell. In far-away France an awful darkness came down upon the land; a great whirlwind swept the face of the country; the rain fell, the earth rocked, and the thunder rolled along the sky. For a long time the darkness was unbroken, save when the lightning cleft the storm-clouds and gave to the scene a yet wilder fear. On all there came a mighty dread, and they deemed the end of the world at hand. They knew not that it was an augury of the fateful tragedy at the gates of Spain.

The lone heights about Roncesvalles had looked upon the Christian in his pride and triumph; now were they destined to behold another sight.

Like that awful storm-cloud, the heathen came down upon the Christian few, the thunder of hoof-beats waked the echoes of Roncesvalles, and the hard earth reeled with the shock of arms.

The rear-guard made their last brave stand that day. Lance to lance and sword to sword, they held their own while there was yet life in them, and they achieved all but the impossible. Twice did the heathen swarms break and fly before the fierce onslaughts of the Christians, but twice, reinforced, they rushed to the attack again. Knight after knight went down before them,--Engelier, Duke Sampson, Anseis, Gerien, and Gerier! Where might the emperor find their like again?

At length only sixty of the Franks were left, pressed together by the Moslem thousands. Every man in that "marvelous little companie" knew that death that day would be his portion; but each was stanch and true, and was resolved to sell his life "full hardily."

As the once haughty Roland gazed on his slaughtered men and on the pitiful few who rallied around him in his last stand against the Moslem power, his heart smote him grievously for the ruin he had wrought, and he cried to his companion,--

"Would to God he had been with us--our emperor and friend! Speak, Oliver, and lend thy counsel. How may we yet send tidings to Karl?" But Oliver, in spite of his usual gentleness, was bitter against his friend, and he said mockingly,--