s
and shut up in a convent, and her husband was thrown into prison for life,
some accounts saying that his eyes were put out by order of the cruel
king. As for their infant son, he was sent into the mountains of the
Asturias, to be brought up among peasants and mountaineers.

It was known that he had been sent there by Alfonso, and the people
believed him to be the king's son and treated him as a prince. In the
healthy out-door life of the hills he grew strong and handsome, while his
native courage was shown in hunting adventures and the perils of mountain
life. When old enough he learned the use of arms, and soon left his humble
friends for the army, in which his boldness and bravery were shown in many
encounters with the French and the Arabs. Those about him still supposed
him to be the son of the king, though Alfonso, while furnishing him with
all knightly arms and needs, neither acknowledged nor treated him as his
son. But if not a king's son, he was a very valiant knight, and became the
terror of all the foes of Spain.

All this time his unfortunate father languished in prison, where from time
to time he was told by his keepers of the mighty deeds of the young prince
Bernardo del Carpio, by which name the youthful warrior was known. Count
Sancho knew well that this was his son, and complained bitterly of the
ingratitude of the youth who could leave his father perishing in a prison
cell while he rode freely and joyously in the open air, engaged in battle
and banquet, and was everywhere admired and praised. He knew not that the
young warrior had been kept in ignorance of his birth.

During this period came that great event in the early history of Spain in
which Charlemagne crossed the Pyrenees with a great army and marched upon
the city of Saragossa. It was in the return from this expedition that the
dreadful attack took place in which Roland and the rear guard of the army
were slain in the pass of Roncesvalles. In Spanish story it was Bernardo
del Carpio who led the victorious hosts, and to whose prowess was due the
signal success.

This fierce fight in a mountain-pass, in which a valiant band of
mountaineers overwhelmed and destroyed the flower of the French army, has
been exalted by poetic legend into one of the most stupendous and romantic
of events. Ponderous epic poems have made Roland their theme, numbers of
ballads and romances tell of his exploits, and the far-off echoes of his
ivory horn still sound thro