The dead and dying were once more dragged out. The wounded sought shelter as best they could. Forty warriors yet remained to contest the field—twenty-five Saracens and fifteen Franks.
For a quarter of an hour Miton and Garlan had fought together, with no advantage on either side. With his keen blade the Count of Rennes had cleft the casque of the Alcalde of Valentia, and would have split his skull open but for the turban, which deadened the blow. Garlan had hacked in pieces his adversary’s shield, and the corselet of cambric began to be marbled with streaks of gore. Miton saw that the ranks of his warriors were thinning, and was anxious to make an end of his foe in order to hasten to their aid. He closed with him, knee to knee, foot to foot, and, regardless of the danger to which he exposed himself, seized Garlan by the gorget of his coat of mail, dragged him from his horse, and then passing him from his right hand to his left, held the point of his sword to his throat, and compelled him to yield to his mercy. Then he sent the miscreant a foot beyond the barriers, and gave his charger to Thierry, Duke of Ardennes, who had just been unhorsed.
Cha’chaân el Da’djah, Emir of Toledo, entertained the presumptuous idea of avenging Garlan the Bearded, as if, because he had strangled a few lions in the desert, ripped up a few elephants, and cut in pieces a million or so of enemies, he could pretend to hope for, the conquest of a French knight. He shouted his war-cry, and darted forward to meet the Count of Rennes, brandishing, as he did so, a huge flail with seven chains, the same with which Attila armed himself when fighting the legions of Aétius. But the blow was delivered in empty air—dragged the Emir forward, and made him lose his balance. Miton took advantage of this miss to seize Cha’chaân el Da’djah by the leg, and dragged him from his seat with such violence as to break the saddle, entangle him with the harness, and throw the horse down on its side. Then the spectators beheld a strange sight. The Count of Rennes grasped his foeman by the ankles, rose in his stirrups, and, using the body as a mace, swung it round his head, dashed into the thick of the fight, and began laying about right and left at the Saracens with the Emir. Every time this novel arm fell it encountered some weapon of defence, so that before long little was left of it but shreds. After a time the mortal instrument of war lost its weight, and became useless. When Miton flung it away it had stretched eight Saracens on the plain.
He cast his eye over the field. Marganice, Governor of Carthagena, was fighting with Roard of Limoges and Itiers of Clermont; Garnaille, King of Ethiopia, confronted Lambert the Short and Humbert, Count of Bourges; M’kamat Iladdada, Caliph of Mecca, was showing a bold front to Riol of Mans, Hoël of Nantes, and Bazin of Geneva. Alis, King of Morocco, was engaged with Pinabel; while Sangaran, who ruled at the source of the Niger, Baimalanko, chief of the tribes on the borders of the Dead Sea—each one of these two blacker than the other—and Zunizum-Kalakh, King of Garbe, pressed hard on Aimery of Narbonne, who was, however, giving them two blows for one.
Miton flew to his rescue, and in three minutes, and with twenty strokes of his sword, had ridded him of his foes. Sangaran and Baimalanko fell before his arm, and went to rejoin the Evil One whose livery they wore.
“Thanks, I owe you a similar service,” said Aimery to the Count of Rennes. “I shall have finished with this villain in a few seconds. I am not afraid of a single encounter, so leave me and go succour Pinabel, who has scarce blood enough left to keep him alive.”
And, in truth, the nephew of Ganelon was fighting in the dark, for he was blinded with his own blood. The King of Morocco, who saw a new foeman coming towards him, determined to abandon the contest with Pinabel and charge at once on Miton, a manouvre he accomplished so rapidly that he took the latter by surprise. For four seconds the Count of Rennes was exposed defenceless to the fury of Alis, and this unguarded moment cost him a gash which laid open his left arm from shoulder to elbow, and marked him with a purple chevron on the wrist. Mita uttered a shriek as if she had received the blow, and hid her face in her hands.
“See,” said Himiltrude, “what interest the little Mita takes in the combat, sire. The wound the Count of Rennes has just received makes her heart bleed.”
“Keep your nonsense to yourself, madam,” said the Emperor, who hated to be interfered with at the wrong moment. “When men wield the sword, women should not wag the tongue and he abruptly turned his back on his consort. In point of fact, it was not a well-chosen time for talking.”
And now Riol of Mans had, with a dexterous back stroke, sent the head of M’kamat Haddada flying, and this new kind of projectile had struck Marganice, Governor of Carthagena, in the face, and so confused him that he neglected to parry a furious blow aimed at him by Itiers of Clermont. This really excusable oversight cost him his life. One sharp thrust pinned him to his horse’s crupper like a butterfly on a cork.