IF, my young friends, I have for some few chapters omitted mention of Roland, don’t jump at the conclusion that he did not distinguish himself during the war in Spain, for he took the most notable part in it, as you may judge for yourselves.

After three months spent in fruitless attacks, Saragossa still stood as strong as it was on the first day of the siege. The catapults and balistÆ had become disabled without making the slightest impression on the ramparts. The scaling parties had been repulsed, and the stormers, hacked in pieces with daggers and lances, had been flung from the walls into the fosse, or fell among the flames of the raging fires—for burning pitch had been flung over the walls until it had covered them with a coating of bitumen as impenetrable as iron.

Roland lost patience. “Prepare everything for the storm to-morrow,” said he to Charlemagne. “In one hour the breach shall be made!” And he descended into the fosse with no other arms, offensive or defensive, than Durandal and his shield.

“Whither goes your nephew, sire?” said Turpin to Charlemagne, following Roland with his eyes. “Is he mad, or tired of life?”

“I don’t know what he is going to do, but he has bidden me have all ready for the assault, saying that within an hour the breach will be made.”

“He will do it, then, sire, as he has said it; and, by my faith! I am grateful to him, for we are beginning to grow mouldy here.”

Charles mounted his horse, and began to make his dispositions for the assault. The Saracen sentries on guard on the rampart hardly took any notice of the single warrior who approached the city; but, hearing a great noise, they leant over and saw Roland, who was hammering at the wall with repeated strokes of the pommel of Durandal.

The Saracens laughed, and asked one another what the idiot wanted.

“Shall we smash him?” said one of them, preparing to roll a huge stone over the rampart.

“What for?” said another. “Is there any reason to be afraid of him? Shouldn’t you like; to know what he has come here to do?”

Curiosity is the worst of advisers. The sentinels exposed themselves in order to see better, and four arrows struck them in the face. It was the hour of target-practice with the pages of Charlemagne.

“I am afraid this is likely to make the infidels squint!” said Mitaine, choosing a new arrow.

Roland, heedless of all that was passing around him, continued his work of destruction. The wall began at last to yawn, and the knight to smile, delighted at his success.

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By-and-by the tremendous hammering excited the curiosity of the besieged, and some of the soldiers, seeing the sentinels leaning over the ramparts and never stirring, were anxious to discover what was so engrossing their attention. They in their turn leant over, and each received an arrow in his ear.

“What do you think of those ear-rings?” said Mitaine, laughing. “Were ever such lovely trinkets seen? Saint Eloi, the goldsmith, could not have fashioned finer!”

During this time Roland redoubled his force. A rent thirty cubits long began to threaten the wall with ruin. Marsillus, who was passing in the neighbourhood, felt the earth tremble beneath his feet. Every blow of the pommel of Durandal made the whole quarter of the city shake to its foundation.

“So, then,” said the King of Saragossa, “these wretches have brought new engines of war against us! Why has no one told me of this? Ebrechin, go see what it is, and hasten back with intelligence of what is passing.”

The earth continued to quake, and several houses began to tremble to their fall.

“It is not an ordinary balista at work there,” said Marsillus. “None of those in use now can deliver such hard blows.”

But hardly had the King finished his sentence when a mosque fell in ruins within a hundred paces of where he stood. Then a still more awful noise froze his blood with terror. The breach was made: Roland had kept his word.

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