oubled
him sorely. He had seen the fierce, half-famished lad in his vision, and
had been warned to follow him.

After a moment's thought, Charlemagne dispatched three of his knights to
find the boy and bring him to the royal presence. The three who were so
commissioned had little trouble in finding the lad, but they came near
having a serious conflict with him when they attempted to enter,
uninvited, the cave he felt to be his castle. His mother, however,
restrained the impetuous youth with her pleadings, and the messengers
of Charlemagne entered.

When Bertha learned that the knights had come from the emperor, she
disclosed to them her own identity and the identity of the lad they had
come to seize. This was Roland's first knowledge of his great lineage,
and he heard and beheld as in a dream, as the knights knelt before his
mother and promised to obtain for her the emperor's pardon.

Dazed, dreaming still, the gaunt, sinewy lad took his way to
Charlemagne, in company with the knights who had been sent to fetch him.
But in the presence of his emperor,--his kinsman,--the dream feeling
passed, and Roland rose to the occasion with the pride and independence
of his race.

When the white-haired, careworn emperor looked upon his sister's son,
his heart went out to him with a great yearning; for the lad was tall
and strong, the lad was proud and unconquered. And Charles the Great
opened his empty arms and took the boy to his heart, nevermore to be
exiled from it.

Roland and his mother returned to France with the emperor to be, from
that time on, part of the royal household, and to enjoy riches and
honor.

But the great happiness that was Roland's was not without its heartache.
He and his beloved Oliver were completely separated by this change, and
drifted further away from each other with the drift of years.

As soon as Roland was grown to manhood, Charlemagne made him captain of
his "peers,"--the twelve knights who, for their bravery and their
trustworthiness, were chosen to be next to the emperor himself in
authority.

Among all the twelve, young Roland was the most daring, the most
impetuous. His splendid qualities won for him the hearts of the many;
but the few were jealous of him, and charged that he exercised undue
influence over the emperor and incited the white-haired Charlemagne to
deeds of daring and violence that were none of his own conceiving. Chief
among Roland's accusers was the envious Count Ganelon