“It is well,” answered the good Turpin.  “Do as thou wilt.  The field is thine and mine.”

So Roland, weak and faint, went all alone through that field of blood, seeking his friends.  He found Berenger and Otho and Anseis and Samson, and proud Gerard of Roussillon; and one by one he brought them and laid them on the grass before the archbishop.  And lastly he brought back Oliver, pressed gently against his bosom, and placed him on a shield by the others.  The archbishop wept; and he lifted up his feeble hands and blessed them:  “Sad has it been with you, comrades.  May God, the glorious King, receive your souls in His paradise!”

Then Roland, faint with loss of blood, and overcome with grief, swooned and fell to the ground.  The good archbishop felt such distress as he had never known before.  He staggered to his feet; he took the ivory horn in his hands, and went to fetch water from the brook which flows through the Vale of Thorns.  Slowly and feebly he tottered onward, but not far:  his strength failed and he fell to the ground.  Soon Roland recovered from his swoon and looked about him.  On the green grass this side of the rivulet, he saw the archbishop lying.  The good Turpin was dead.

And now Roland felt that he, too, was nigh death’s door.  He took the ivory horn in one hand, and Durandal in the other, and went up a little hill that lies toward Spain.  He sat down beneath a pine tree where were four great blocks of marble.  He looked at the blade Durandal.  “Ha, Durandal,” he said, “how bright and white thou art!  Thou shinest and flamest against the sun!  Many countries have I conquered with thee, and now for thee I have great grief.  Better would it be to destroy thee than to have thee fall into the hands of the Pagan folk.”

With great effort he raised himself on his feet again.  Ten times he smote with Durandal the great rock before him.  But the sword was bright and whole as ever, while the rock was split in pieces.  Then the hero lay down upon the grass, with his face toward the foe.  He put the sword and the horn under him.  He stretched his right glove toward heaven, and an unseen hand came and took it away.  Dead was the matchless hero.

Not long after this King Charlemagne with his host came to the death-strewn Vale of Thorns.  Great was the grief of the king and of all the French, when they found that they had come too late to save even a single life.  Roland was found lying on the grass, his face turned toward Spain.  Charlemagne took him up tenderly in his arms, and wept.

“Friend Roland,” said he, “worthiest of men, bravest of warriors, noblest of all my knights, what shall I, say when they in France shall ask news of thee?  I shall tell them that thou art dead in Spain.  With great sorrow shall I hold my realm from this time on.  Every day I shall weep and bewail thee, and wish that my life, too, were ended.”