Roland leaves him, and advances alone into the field of carnage, seeking on the mountain, seeking in the valley. He finds them—his brave comrades and the Duke Sanche, the aged Anséis, and Gérard, and Berenger. One by one he brings them, laying them at the knees of the priest, who weeps while he blesses them. But when it comes to the turn of Oliver; when Roland would carry the body of this dear comrade, closely pressed against his heart, his face grows pale, his strength forsakes him, and he falls fainting on the ground.
The archbishop at this sight feels himself seized with a deathlike grief. There is, in this valley of Roncevaux, a running stream; if only he could give some water to Roland! He seizes the olifant, and tries, with slow steps, to drag himself tremblingly along. But he is too feeble to advance. His strength fails, and he falls, with his face to the earth, in the pangs of death.
Roland revives, and sees the prostrate warrior. With his eyes raised to heaven, and with joined hands, he makes his confession to God, and prays him to open to the good soldier of Charlemagne the gate of his paradise. Then he approaches the bleeding body of the holy prelate, raises his beautiful white hands, and lays them crosswise on his breast, bidding him a tender adieu.
But Roland in his turn now feels that the hand of death is upon him. He prays to God for his peers, supplicating him to call them to himself, and invokes the holy angel Gabriel. Taking in one hand the olifant, and Durandal in the other, he climbs an eminence looking towards Spain, and there, in the green corn, underneath a tree, he lets himself sink upon the ground.
Near at hand, behind a marble rock, a Saracen, lying in the midst of the corpses, his face stained with blood, the better to counterfeit death, was watching him. He sees him fall, and, suddenly springing up, he runs to him, trying out, "Conquered! the nephew of Charles! His sword is mine; I will carry it to Arabia!" He tries to draw it, but Roland has felt something, opens his eyes, and says, "You are not one of our people, it seems to me;" and with a blow of his olifant lays him dead at his feet. "Miscreant," he says, "thou art very bold—some would say very mad—thus to lay hands on me. However, I have split my olifant; the gold and precious stones are shaken from it by the blow."
Little by little Roland finds that his sight is failing him. He raises himself on his feet, trying to support himself as best he may; but his countenance is colorless and livid. On a rock hard by he strikes ten blows with Durandal. He would fain break it, his valiant sword. What grief and mourning would it not be to leave it to the pagans! May this shame be spared to France! But the steel cuts into the rock, and does not break. Roland strikes anew upon a rock of sardonyx. Not the least flaw in the steel! He strikes again. The rock flies in pieces, but the steel resists. "Ah!" he cries, "Holy Mary help me! My Durandal, thou who didst so brightly gleam in this resplendent sun; thou, so beautiful and sacred, who wast given to me by Charles at the command of God himself; thou by whom I have conquered Brittany and Normandy, Maine and Poitou, Aquitaine and Romagna, Flanders, Bavaria, Germany, Poland, Constantinople, Saxony, Iceland, and England, long hast thou been in the hands of a valiant man; shalt thou fall now into a coward's power? Ah! sacred Durandal, in thy golden guard how many precious relics are enshrined!—a tooth of S. Peter, the blood of S. Basil, some hair of S. Denis, a portion of Our Lady's robe—and shall ever any pagan possess thee? A brave man and a Christian has alone the right to use thee."
Even as he utters these words, death is stealing over him, until it reaches his heart. He stretches himself at length upon the green grass, laying under him his sword and his dear olifant; then, turning his face towards the Saracens, that Charles and his men should say, on finding him thus, that he died victorious, he smites on his breast, and cries to God for mercy. The memory of many things then comes back to him—the memory of so many brave fights; of his sweet country; of the people of his lineage; of Charles, his lord, who nourished him; and then his thoughts turn also to himself: "My God, our true Father, who never canst deceive, who didst bring Lazarus back from the dead, and Daniel from the teeth of the lions, save my soul! Snatch it from the peril of the sins which I have committed during my life!" And so saying, with his head supported on his arm, with his right hand he reaches out his gauntlet towards God. S. Gabriel takes it, and God sends his angel cherubim and S. Michael, called "du Péril." By them and by Gabriel the soul of the count is borne into paradise.
Charlemagne has returned into this valley of Roncevaux. Not a rood, not an inch of earth, which is not covered by a corpse. With a loud voice Charles calls the name of his nephew; he calls the archbishop, and Gérin, and Berenger, and the Duke Sanche, and Angélier, and all his peers. To what purpose? There are none to answer. "Wherefore was I not in this fight?" he cries, tearing his long beard and fainting with grief; and the whole army laments with him. These weep for their sons, those for their brothers, their nephews, their friends, their lords.
In the midst of all this mourning, the Duke Naymes, a sagacious man, approaches the emperor. "Look in front," he says. "See these dusty roads. It is the pagan horde in flight. To horse! We must be avenged!"
Charles, before setting forth, commands four barons and a thousand knights to guard the field of battle. "Leave the dead there as they are," he says. "Keep away the wild beasts, and let no man touch them, neither squires nor varlets, until the hour, please God, of our return." Then he bade them sound the charge, and pursued the Saracens.