rn, and so great
was the third that a blood-vessel burst, and the red drops trickled
from his mouth.

For days on end Charlemagne had been alarmed at the delay of his
rearguard, but ever the false Ganelon had reassured him.

"Why shouldst thou fear, sire?" he asked. "Roland has surely gone
after some wild boar or deer, so fond is he of the chase."

But when Roland blew the blast that broke his mighty heart,
Charlemagne heard it clearly, and no longer had any doubt of the
meaning of its call. He knew that his dreams had come true, and at
once he set his face towards the dire pass of Roncesvalles that he
might, even at the eleventh hour, save Roland and his men.

Long ere Charlemagne could reach the children of his soul who stood in
such dire need, the uncle of Marsile had reached the place of battle
with a force of fifty thousand men. Pierced from behind by a cowardly
lance, Oliver was sobbing out his life's blood. Yet ever he cried,
"Montjoie! Montjoie!" and each time his voice formed the words, a
thrust from his sword, or from the lances of his men, drove a soul
down to Hades. And when he was breathing his last, and lay on the
earth, humbly confessing his sins and begging God to grant him rest in
Paradise, he asked God's blessing upon Charlemagne, his lord the
king, and upon his fair land of France, and, above all other men, to
keep free from scathe his heart's true brother and comrade, Roland,
the gallant knight. Then did he gently sigh his last little measure of
life away, and as Roland bent over him he felt that half of the
glamour of living was gone. Yet still so dearly did he love Aude the
Fair, the sister of Oliver, who was to be his bride, that his muscles
grew taut as he gripped his sword, and his courage was the dauntless
courage of a furious wave that faces all the cliffs of a rocky coast
in a winter storm, when again, he faced the Saracen host.

Of all the Douzeperes, only Gautier and Turpin and Roland now
remained, and with them a poor little handful of maimed men-at-arms.
Soon a Saracen arrow drove through the heart of Gautier, and Turpin,
wounded by four lances, stood alone by Roland's side. But for each
lance thrust he slew a hundred men, and when at length he fell,
Roland, himself sorely wounded, seized once more his horn and blew
upon it a piercing blast:

"... a blast of that dread horn,
On Fontarabian echoes borne,
That to King Charles did come,
When Rowland brave, and Ol