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?”