"out of very toil and
grief; so we will go together."

Orlando led his cousin's horse where the press was thickest, and
dreadful was the strength of the dying man and his tired companion.
They made a street through which they passed out of the battle, and
Orlando led his cousin away to his tent, and said, "Wait a little till
I return, for I will go and sound the horn on the hill yonder."

"'Tis of no use," said Oliver, "my spirit is fast going and desires to
be with its Lord and Saviour."

He would have said more, but his words came from him imperfectly, like
those of a man in a dream, and so he expired.

When Orlando saw him dead he felt as if he was alone on the earth, and
he was quite willing to leave it, only he wished that King Charles, at
the foot of the mountains, should know how the case stood before he
went. So he took up the horn and blew it three times, with such force
that the blood burst out of his nose and mouth. Turpin says that at the
third blast the horn broke in two.

In spite of all the noise of the battle, the sound of the horn broke
over it like a voice out of the other world. They say that birds fell
dead at it, and that the whole Saracen army drew back in terror.
Charlemagne was sitting in the midst of his court when the sound
reached him, and Gan was there. The Emperor was the first to hear it.

"Do you hear that?" said he to his nobles. "Did you hear the horn as I
heard it?"

Upon this they all listened, and Gan felt his heart misgive him. The
horn sounded a second time.

"What is the meaning of this?" said Charles.

"Orlando is hunting," observed Gan, "and the stag is killed."

But when the horn sounded yet a third time, and the blast was one of so
dreadful a vehemence, everybody looked at the other, and then they all
looked at Gan in a fury. Charles rose from his seat.

"This is no hunting of the stag," said he. "The sound goes to my very
heart. O Gan! O Gan! Not for thee do I blush, but for myself. O foul
and monstrous villain! Take him, gentleman, and keep him in close
prison. Would to God I had not lived to see this day!"

But it was no time for words. They put the traitor in prison and then
Charles, with all his court, took his way to Roncesvalles, grieving and
praying.

It was afternoon when the horn sounded, and half an hour after it when
the Emperor set out; and meantime Orlando had returned to the fight
that he might do his duty, however hopeless, as long as he could si