they were
unable. Marsilius had drawn the rest of his forces round the valley
like a net, so that their shoulders were turned in vain. Orlando rode
into the thick of them, and wherever he went thunderbolts fell upon
helmets. Oliver was again in the fray, with Walter and Baldwin, Avino
and Avolio, while Arch-bishop Turpin had changed his crosier for a
lance, and chased a new flock before him to the mountains.
Yet what could be done against foes without number? Marsilius
constantly pours them in. The paladins are as units to thousands. Why
tarry the horses of Rinaldo and Ricciardetto?
The horses did not tarry, but fate had been quicker than enchantment.
Ashtaroth had presented himself to Rinaldo in Egypt, and, after telling
his errand, he and Foul-mouth, his servant, entered the horses of
Rinaldo and Ricciardetto, which began to neigh, and snort, and leap
with the fiends within them, till off they flew through the air over
the pyramids and across the desert, and reached Spain and the scene of
action just as Marsilius brought up his third army. The two paladins on
their horses dropped right into the midst of the Saracens, and began
making such havoc among them that Marsilius, who overlooked the fight
from a mountain, thought his soldiers had turned against one another.
Orlando beheld it, and guessed it could be no other but his cousins,
and pressed to meet them. Oliver coming up at the same moment, the
rapture of the whole party is not to be expressed. After a few hasty
words of explanation they were forced to turn again upon the enemy,
whose numbers seemed perfectly without limit.
Orlando, making a bloody passage towards Marsilius, struck a youth on
the head, whose helmet was so strong as to resist the blow, but at the
same time flew off, Orlando prepared to strike a second blow, when the
youth exclaimed, "Hold! you loved my father; I am Bujaforte!" The
paladin had never seen Bujaforte, but he saw the likeness to the good
old man, his father, and he dropped his sword. "O Bujaforte," said he,
"I loved him indeed; but what does his son do here fighting against his
friends?"
Bujaforte could not at once speak for weeping. At length he said: "I am
forced to be here by my lord and master, Marsilius; and I have made a
show of fighting, but have not hurt a single Christian. Treachery is on
every side of you. Baldwin himself has a vest given him by Marsilius,
that everybody may know the son of his friend Gan, and do him n
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