ood-stained their gay banners and
pennons, and many, many of their brave comrades lay lifeless. Sadly
they looked round on the heaps of corpses, and their minds were filled
with grief as they thought of their companions, of fair France which
they should see no more, and of their emperor who even now awaited
them while they fought and died for him. Yet they were not
discouraged; loudly their cry re-echoed, "Montjoie! Montjoie!" as
Roland cheered them on, and Turpin called aloud: "Our men are heroes;
no king under heaven has better. It is written in the Chronicles of
France that in that great land it is our king's right to have valiant
soldiers."

A Second Saracen Army

While they sought in tears the bodies of their friends, the main army
of the Saracens, under King Marsile in person, came upon them; for the
one fugitive who had escaped had urged Marsile to attack again at
once, while the Franks were still weary. The advice seemed good to
Marsile, and he advanced at the head of a hundred thousand men, whom
he now hurled against the French in columns of fifty thousand at a
time; and they came on right valiantly, with clarions sounding and
trumpets blowing.

"'Soldiers of the Lord,' cried Turpin,
'Be ye valiant and steadfast,
For this day shall crowns be given you
Midst the flowers of Paradise.
In the name of God our Saviour,
Be ye not dismayed nor frighted,
Lest of you be shameful legends
Chanted by the tongue of minstrels.
Rather let us die victorious,
Since this eve shall see us lifeless!--
Heaven has no room for cowards!
Knights, who nobly fight, and vainly,
Ye shall sit amid the holy
In the blessed fields of Heaven.
On then, Friends of God, to glory!'"

And the battle raged anew, with all the odds against the small handful
of French, who knew they were doomed, and fought as though they were
"fey."[13]

Gloomy Portents

Meanwhile the whole course of nature was disturbed. In France there
were tempests of wind and thunder, rain and hail; thunderbolts fell
everywhere, and the earth shook exceedingly. From Mont St. Michel to
Cologne, from Besancon to Wissant, not one town could show its walls
uninjured, not one village its houses unshaken. A terrible darkness
spread over all the land, only broken when the heavens split asunder
with the lightning-flash. Men whispered in terror: "Behold the end of
the world! Behold the great Day of Doom!" Alas! the