force of what the king said; but unable to contain himself long he
lifted up his face, radiant with triumphant wickedness, and exclaimed:
"Every word you utter is truth; die he must, and die also must Oliver,
who struck me that foul blow at court. Is it treachery to punish
affronts like these? I have planned everything,--I have settled
everything already with their besotted master. Orlando will come to
your borders--to Roncesvalles--for the purpose of receiving the
tribute. Charles will await him at the foot of the mountains. Orlando
will bring but a small band with him: you, when you meet him, will have
secretly your whole army at your back. You surround him, and who
receives tribute then?"
The new Judas had scarcely uttered these words when his exultation was
interrupted by a change in the face of nature. The sky was suddenly
overcast, there was thunder and lightning, a laurel was split in two
from head to foot, and the Carob-tree under which Gan was sitting,
which is said to be the species of tree on which Judas Iscariot hung
himself, dropped one of its pods on his head.
Marsilius, as well as Gan, was appalled at this omen; but on assembling
his soothsayers they came to the conclusion that the laurel-tree turned
the omen against the Emperor, the successor of the Caesars, though one
of them renewed the consternation of Gan by saying that he did not
understand the meaning of the tree of Judas, and intimating that
perhaps the ambassador could explain it. Gan relieved his vexation by
anger; the habit of wickedness prevailed over all other considerations;
and the king prepared to march to Roncesvalles at the head of all his
forces.
Gan wrote to Charlemagne to say how humbly and submissively Marsilius
was coming to pay the tribute into the hands of Orlando, and how
handsome it would be of the Emperor to meet him half-way, and so be
ready to receive him after the payment at his camp. He added a
brilliant account of the tribute, and the accompanying presents. The
good Emperor wrote in turn to say how pleased he was with the
ambassador's diligence, and that matters were arranged precisely as he
wished. His court, however, had its suspicion still, though they little
thought Gan's object in bringing Charles into the neighborhood of
Roncesvalles was to deliver him into the hands of Marsilius, after
Orlando should have been destroyed by him.
Orlando, however, did as his lord and sovereign desired. He went to
Roncesvalles, accompanied by a moderate train of warriors, not dreaming
of the atrocity that awaited him. Gan, meanwhile, had hastened back to
France, in order to show himself free and easy in the presence of
Charles, and secure the success of his plot; while Marsilius, to make
assurance doubly sure, brought into the passes of Roncesvalles no less
than three armies, which were successively to fall on the paladin in
case of the worst, and so extinguish him with numbers. He had also, by
Gan's advice, brought heaps of wine and good cheer to be set before his
victims in the first instance; "for that," said the traitor, "will
render the onset the more effective, the feasters being unarmed. One
thing, however, I must not forget," added he; "my son Baldwin is sure
to be with Orlando; you must take care of his life for my sake."
"I give him this vesture off my own body," said the king; "let him wear
it in the battle, and have no fear. My soldiers shall be directed not
to touch him."
Gan went away rejoicing to France. He embraced the sovereign and the
court all round with the air of a man who had brought them nothing but
blessings, and the old king wept for very tenderness and delight.
"Something is going on wrong, and looks very black," thought Malagigi,
the good wizard; "Rinaldo is not here, and it is indispensably
necessary that he should be. I must find out where he is, and
Ricciardetto too, and send for them with all speed."
Malagigi called up by his art a wise, terrible, and cruel spirit, named
Ashtaroth. "Tell me, and tell me truly, of Rinaldo," said Malagigi to
the spirit. The demon looked hard at the paladin, and said nothing. His
aspect was clouded and violent.
The enchanter, with an aspect still cloudier, bade Ashtaroth lay down
that look, and made signs as if he would resort to angrier compulsion;
and the devil, alarmed, loosened his tongue, and said, "You have not
told me what you desire to know of Rinaldo."
"I desire to know what he has been doing, and where he is."
"He has been conquering and baptizing the world, east and west," said
the demon, "and is now in Egypt with Ricciardetto."
"And what has Gan been plotting with Marsilius?" inquired Malagigi;
"and what is to come of it?"
"I know not," said the devil. "I was not attending to Gan at the time,
and we fallen spirits know not the future. All I discern is that by the
signs and comets in the heavens something dreadful is about to
happen--something very strange, treacherous, and bloody; and that Gan
has a seat ready prepared for him in hell."
"Within three days," cried the enchanter, loudly, "bring Rinaldo and
Ricciardetto into the pass of Ronces-Valles. Do it, and I hereby
undertake to summon thee no more."
"Suppose they will not trust themselves with me?" said the spirit.
"Enter Rinaldo's horse, and bring him, whether he trust thee or not."
"It shall be done," returned the demon.
There was an earthquake, and Ashtaroth disappeared.
Marsilius now made his first movement towards the destruction of
Orlando, by sending before him his vassal, King Blanchardin, with his
presents of wines and other luxuries. The temperate but courteous hero
took them in good part, and distributed them as the traitor wished; and
then Blanchardin, on pretence of going forward to salute Charlemagne,
returned, and put himself at the head of the second army, which was the
post assigned him by his liege-lord. King Falseron, whose son Orlando
had slain in battle, headed the first army, and King Balugante the
third. Marsilius made a speech to them, in which he let them into his
design, and concluded by recommending to their good will the son of his
friend Gan, whom they would know by the vest he had sent him, and who
was the only soul amongst the Christian they were to spare.
This son of Gan, meanwhile, and several of the paladins, who distrusted
the misbelievers, and were anxious at all events to be with Orlando,
had joined the hero in the fatal valley; so that the little Christian
host, considering the tremendous valor of their lord and his friends,
were not to be sold for nothing. Rinaldo, alas! the second thunderbolt
of Christendom, was destined not to be there in time to meet the issue.
The paladins in vain begged Orlando to be on his guard against
treachery, and send for a more numerous body of men. The great heart of
the Champion of the Faith was unwilling to harbor suspicion as long as
he could help it. He refused to summon aid which might be superfluous;
neither would he do anything but what his liege-lord had directed. And
yet he could not wholly repress a misgiving. A shadow had fallen on his
heart, great and cheerful as it was. The anticipations of his friends
disturbed him, in spite of the face with which he met them. Perhaps by
a certain foresight he felt his death approaching; but he felt bound
not to encourage the impression. Besides, time pressed; the moment of
the looked-for tribute was at hand, and little combinations of
circumstances determine often the greatest events.
King Marsilius was to arrive early next day with the tribute, and
Oliver, with the morning sun, rode forth to reconnoitre, and see if he
could discover the peaceful pomp of the Spanish court in the distance.
He rode up the nearest height, and from the top of it beheld the first
army of Marsilius already forming in the passes. "O devil Gan," he
exclaimed, "this then is the consummation of thy labors!" Oliver put
spurs to his horse, and galloped back down the mountain to Orlando.
"Well," cried the hero, "what news?"
"Bad news," said his cousin, "such as you would not hear of yesterday.
Marsilius is here in arms, and all the world is with him."
The paladins pressed round Orlando, and entreated him to sound his
horn, in token that he needed help. His only answer was to mount his
horse, and ride up the mountain with Sansonetto.
As soon, however, as he cast forth his eyes, and beheld what was round
about him, he turned in sorrow, and looked down into Roncesvalles, and
said, "O miserable valley! the blood shed in thee this day will color
thy name forever."
Orlando's little camp were furious against the Saracens. They armed
themselves with the greatest impatience. There was nothing but lacing
of helmets and mounting of horses, while good Archbishop Turpin went
from rank to rank exhorting and encouraging the warriors of Christ.
Orlando and his captains withdrew for a moment to consultation. He
fairly groaned for sorrow, and at first had not a word to say, so
wretched he felt at having brought his people to die in Roncesvalles.
Then he said: "If it had entered into my heart to conceive the king of
Spain to be such a villain never would you have seen this day. He has
exchanged with me a thousand courtesies and good words; and I thought
that the worse enemies we had been before, the better friends we had
become now. I fancied every human being capable of this kind of virtue
on a good opportunity, saving, indeed, such base-hearted wretches as
can never forgive their very forgivers; and of these I did not suppose
him to be one. Let us die, if die we must, like honest and gallant men,
so that it shall be said of us it was only our bodies that died. The
reason why I did not sound the horn was partly because I thought it did
not become us, and partly because our liege lord could hardly save us,
even if he heard it." And with these words Orlando sprang to his horse,
crying, "Aways against the Saracens!" But he had no sooner turned his
face than he wept bitterly, and said, "O Holy Virgin, think not of me,
the sinner Orlando, but have pity on these thy servants!"
And now with a mighty dust, and an infinite sound of horns and
tambours, which came filling the valley, the first army of the infidels
made its appearance, horses neighing, and a thousand pennons flying in
the air. King Falseron led them on, saying to his officers: "Let nobody
dare to lay a finger on Orlando. He belongs to myself. The revenge of
my son's death is mine. I will cut the man down that comes between us."
"Now, friends," said Orlando, "every man for himself, and St. Michael
for us all! There is not one here that is not a perfect knight." And he
might well say it, for the flower of all France was there, except
Rinaldo and Ricciardetto--every man a picked man, all friends and
constant companions of Orlando.
So the captains of the little troop and of the great army sat looking
at one another, and singling one another out as the latter came on, and
then the knights put spear in rest, and ran for a while two and two in
succession, one against the other.
Astolpho was the first to move. He ran against Arlotto of Sorio, and
thrust his antagonist's body out of the saddle, and his soul into the
other world. Oliver encountered Malprimo, and, though he received a
thrust which hurt him, sent his lance right through the heart of
Malprimo.
Falseron was daunted at this blow. "Truly," thought he, "this is a
marvel." Oliver did not press on among the Saracens, his wound was too
painful; but Orlando now put himself and his whole band in motion, and
you may guess what an uproar ensued. The sound of the rattling of blows
and helmets was as if the forge of Vulcan had been thrown open.
Falseron beheld Orlando coming so furiously, that he thought him a
Lucifer who had burst his chain, and was quite of another mind than
when he purposed to have him all to himself. On the contrary, he
recommended himself to his gods, and turned away, meaning to wait for a
more auspicious season of revenge. But Orlando hailed him with a
terrible voice, saying, "O thou traitor! was this the end to which old
quarrels were made up?" Then he dashed at Falseron with a fury so
swift, and at the same time with a mastery of his lance so marvellous,
that, though he plunged it in the man's body so as instantly to kill
him, and then withdrew it, the body did not move in the saddle. The
hero himself, as he rushed onwards, was fain to see the end of a stroke
so perfect, and turning his horse back, touched the carcass with his
sword, and it fell on the instant!
When the infidels beheld their leader dead such fear fell upon them
that they were for leaving the field to the paladins, but they were
unable. Marsilius had drawn the rest of his forces round the valley
like a net, so that their shoulders were turned in vain. Orlando rode
into the thick of them, and wherever he went thunderbolts fell upon
helmets. Oliver was again in the fray, with Walter and Baldwin, Avino
and Avolio, while Arch-bishop Turpin had changed his crosier for a
lance, and chased a new flock before him to the mountains.
Yet what could be done against foes without number? Marsilius
constantly pours them in. The paladins are as units to thousands. Why
tarry the horses of Rinaldo and Ricciardetto?
The horses did not tarry, but fate had been quicker than enchantment.
Ashtaroth had presented himself to Rinaldo in Egypt, and, after telling
his errand, he and Foul-mouth, his servant, entered the horses of
Rinaldo and Ricciardetto, which began to neigh, and snort, and leap
with the fiends within them, till off they flew through the air over
the pyramids and across the desert, and reached Spain and the scene of
action just as Marsilius brought up his third army. The two paladins on
their horses dropped right into the midst of the Saracens, and began
making such havoc among them that Marsilius, who overlooked the fight
from a mountain, thought his soldiers had turned against one another.
Orlando beheld it, and guessed it could be no other but his cousins,
and pressed to meet them. Oliver coming up at the same moment, the
rapture of the whole party is not to be expressed. After a few hasty
words of explanation they were forced to turn again upon the enemy,
whose numbers seemed perfectly without limit.
Orlando, making a bloody passage towards Marsilius, struck a youth on
the head, whose helmet was so strong as to resist the blow, but at the
same time flew off, Orlando prepared to strike a second blow, when the
youth exclaimed, "Hold! you loved my father; I am Bujaforte!" The
paladin had never seen Bujaforte, but he saw the likeness to the good
old man, his father, and he dropped his sword. "O Bujaforte," said he,
"I loved him indeed; but what does his son do here fighting against his
friends?"
Bujaforte could not at once speak for weeping. At length he said: "I am
forced to be here by my lord and master, Marsilius; and I have made a
show of fighting, but have not hurt a single Christian. Treachery is on
every side of you. Baldwin himself has a vest given him by Marsilius,
that everybody may know the son of his friend Gan, and do him no harm."
"Put your helmet on again," said Orlando, "and behave just as you have
done. Never will your father's friend be an enemy to the son."
The hero then turned in fury to look for Baldwin, who was hastening
towards him at that moment, with friendliness in his looks.
"'Tis strange," said Baldwin, "I have done my duty as well as I could,
yet nobody will come against me. I have slain right and left, and
cannot comprehend what it is that makes the stoutest infidels avoid me."
"Take off your vest," said Orlando, contemptuously, "and you will soon
discover the secret, if you wish to know it. Your father has sold us to
Marsilius, all but his honorable son."
"If my father," said Baldwin, impetuously tearing off the vest, "has
been such a villain, and I escape dying, I will plunge this sword
through his heart. But I am no traitor, Orlando, and you do me wrong to
say it. Think not I can live with dishonor."
Baldwin spurred off into the fight, not waiting to hear another word
from Orlando, who was very sorry for what he had said, for he perceived
that the youth was in despair.
And now the fight raged beyond all it had done before; twenty pagans
went down for one paladin, but still the paladins fell. Sansonetto was
beaten to earth by the club of Grandonio, Walter d'Amulion had his
shoulder broken, Berlinghieri and Ottone were slain, and at last
Astolpho fell, in revenge of whose death Orlando turned the spot where
he died into a lake of Saracen blood. The luckless Bujaforte met
Rinaldo, and before he could explain how he seemed to be fighting on
the Saracen side received such a blow upon the head that he fell,
unable to utter a word. Orlando, cutting his way to a spot where there
was a great struggle and uproar, found the poor youth Baldwin, the son
of Gan, with two spears in his breast. "I am no traitor now," said
Baldwin, and those were the last words he said. Orlando was bitterly
sorry to have been the cause of his death, and tears streamed from his
eyes. At length down went Oliver himself. He had become blinded with
his own blood, and smitten Orlando without knowing him. "How now,
cousin," cried Orlando, "have you too gone over to the enemy?" "O my
lord and master," cried the other, "I ask your pardon. I can see
nothing; I am dying. Some traitor has stabbed me in the back. If you
love me, lead my horse into the thick of them, so that I may not die
unavenged."
"I shall die myself before long," said Orlando, "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 sit
his horse. At length he found his end approaching, for toil and fever,
and rode all alone to a fountain where he had before quenched his
thirst. His horse was wearier than he, and no sooner had his master
alighted than the beast, kneeling down as if to take leave, and to say,
"I have brought you to a place of rest," fell dead at his feet. Orlando
cast water on him from the fountain, not wishing to believe him dead;
but when he found it to no purpose, he grieved for him as if he had
been a human being, and addressed him by name with tears, and asked
forgiveness if he had ever done him wrong. They say that the horse, at
these words, opened his eyes a little, and looked kindly at his master,
and then stirred never more. They say also that Orlando then summoning
all his strength, smote a rock near him with his beautiful sword
Durindana, thinking to shiver the steel in pieces, and so prevent its
falling into the hands of the enemy, but though the rock split like a
slate, and a great cleft remained ever after to astonish the eyes of
pilgrims, the sword remained uninjured.
And now Rinaldo and Ricciardetto came up, with Turpin, having driven
back the Saracens, and told Orlando that the battle was won. Then
Orlando knelt before Turpin and begged remission of his sins, and
Turpin gave him absolution. Orlando fixed his eyes on the hilt of his
sword as on a crucifix, and embraced it, and he raised his eyes and
appeared like a creature seraphical and transfigured, and bowing his
head, he breathed out his pure soul.
And now King Charles and his nobles came up. The Emperor, at sight of
the dead Orlando, threw himself, as if he had been a reckless youth,
from his horse, and embraced and kissed the body, and said: "I bless
thee, Orlando; I bless thy whole life, and all that thou wast, and all
that thou ever didst, and the father that begat thee; and I ask pardon
of thee for believing those who brought thee to thine end. They shall
have their reward, O thou beloved one! But indeed it is thou that
livest, and I who am worse than dead."
Horrible to the Emperor's eyes was the sight of the field of
Roncesvalles. The Saracens indeed had fled, conquered; but all his
paladins but two were left on it dead, and the whole valley looked like
a great slaughter-house, trampled into blood and dirt, and reeking to
the heat. Charles trembled to his heart's core for wonder and agony.
After gazing dumbly on the place he cursed it with a solemn curse, and
wished that never grass might grow in it again, nor seed of any kind,
neither within it nor on any of its mountains around, but the anger of
Heaven abide over it forever.
Charles and his warriors went after the Saracens into Spain. They took
and fired Saragossa, and Marsilius was hung to the carob-tree under
which he had planned his villainy with Gan; and Gan was hung and drawn
and quartered in Roncesvalles, amidst the execrations of the country.
RINALDO AND BAYARD
CHARLEMAGNE was overwhelmed with grief at the loss of so many of his
bravest warriors at the disaster of Roncesvalles, and bitterly
reproached himself for his credulity in resigning himself so completely
to the counsels of the treacherous Count Gan. Yet he soon fell into a
similar snare when he suffered his unworthy son, Charlot, to acquire
such an influence over him, that he constantly led him into acts of
cruelty and injustice that in his right mind he would have scorned to
commit. Rinaldo and his brothers, for some slight offence to the
imperious young prince, were forced to fly from Paris, and to take
shelter in their castle of Montalban; for Charles had publicly said, if
he could take them he would hang them all. He sent numbers of his
bravest knights to arrest them, but all without success. Either Rinaldo
foiled their efforts and sent them back, stripped of their armor and of
their glory, or, after meeting and conferring with him, they came back
and told the king they could not be his instruments for such a work.
At last Charles himself raised a great army, and went in person to
compel the paladin to submit. He ravaged all the country round about
Montalban, so that supplies of food should be cut off, and he
threatened death to any who should attempt to issue forth, hoping to
compel the garrison to submit for want of food.
Rinaldo's resources had been brought so low that it seemed useless to
contend any longer. His brothers had been taken prisoners in a
skirmish, and his only hope of saving their lives was in making terms
with the king.