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When they were once more on the move, Mitaine informed her father of the dangers she had escaped. She also recited her adventures to Charles.
The Emperor listened attentively, and then said to Miton—
“Count of Rennes, send out in every direction, and bid them bring before me, dead or alive, all the one-eyed men within ten leagues round.” Bodies of cavalry were dispatched in every quarter, and acted with such vigour, that by the next morning early forty blind men awaited His Majesty’s inspection. They were of all races—Franks, Jews, and Saracens. Charles examined them carefully; and when he had rejected those who seemed to him to have been blind for a long period, or those whose presence in camp for two days past was established on good evidence, he remarked, with great astonishment, that there only remained ten men in the livery of the Count of Mayence, and that they were all recently wounded in the right eye. The emperor knit his brows, and sent for Ganelon.
“Prithee, friend, can you explain to me how it is that all your men here have become blind since yesterday, and all of the same eye, too?”
“Nothing can be more simple. Because I am short-sighted.”
“You dare jest with me!” shouted the Emperor, with a voice of thunder.