CXII

     Furious waxeth the fight, and strange;
     Frank and heathen their blows exchange;
     While these defend, and those assail,
     And their lances broken and bloody fail. 
     Ensign and pennon are rent and cleft,
     And the Franks of their fairest youth bereft,
     Who will look on mother or spouse no more,
     Or the host that waiteth the gorge before. 
     Karl the Mighty may weep and wail;
     What skilleth sorrow, if succour fail? 
     An evil service was Gan’s that day,
     When to Saragossa he bent his way,
     His faith and kindred to betray. 
     But a doom thereafter awaited him—­
     Amerced in Aix, of life and limb,
     With thirty of his kin beside,
     To whom was hope of grace denied.

     CXIII

     King Almaris with his band, the while,
     Wound through a marvellous strait defile,
     Where doth Count Walter the heights maintain
     And the passes that lie at the gates of Spain. 
     “Gan, the traitor, hath made of us,”
     Said Walter, “a bargain full dolorous.”

     CXIV

     King Almaris to the mount hath clomb,
     With sixty thousand of heathendom. 
     In deadly wrath on the Franks they fall,
     And with furious onset smite them all: 
     Routed, scattered, or slain they lie. 
     Then rose the wrath of Count Walter high;
     His sword he drew, his helm he laced,
     Slowly in front of the line he paced,
     And with evil greeting his foeman faced.

     CXV

     Right on his foemen doth Walter ride,
     And the heathen assail him on every side;
     Broken down was his shield of might,
     Bruised and pierced was his hauberk white;
     Four lances at once did his body wound: 
     No longer bore he—­four times he swooned;
     He turned perforce from the field aside,
     Slowly adown the mount he hied,
     And aloud to Roland for succour cried.

     CXVI

     Wild and fierce is the battle still: 
     Roland and Olivier fight their fill;
     The Archbishop dealeth a thousand blows
     Nor knoweth one of the peers repose;
     The Franks are fighting commingled all,
     And the foe in hundreds and thousands fall;
     Choice have they none but to flee or die,
     Leaving their lives despighteously. 
     Yet the Franks are reft of their chivalry,
     Who will see nor parent nor kindred fond,
     Nor Karl who waits them the pass beyond.

     CXVII

     Now a wondrous storm o’er France hath passed,
     With thunder-stroke and whirlwind’s blast;
     Rain unmeasured, and hail, there came,
     Sharp and sudden the lightning’s flame;
     And an earthquake ran—­the sooth I say,
     From Besancon city to Wissant Bay;
     From Saint Michael’s