ould cease to
hinder me from rallying my people. I pretended to fly, in order to
bring you out of the field. If you insist upon fighting I must needs
fight and slay you, but I call the sun in the heavens to witness I
would rather not. I should be very sorry for your death."

The Count Orlando felt pity for so much gallantry, and he said, "The
nobler you show yourself the more it grieves me to think that in dying
without a knowledge of the true faith you will be lost in the other
world. Let me advise you to save body and soul at once. Receive
baptism, and go your way in peace."

Agrican replied: "I suspect you to be the paladin Orlando. If you are I
would not lose this opportunity of fighting with you to be king of
Paradise. Talk to me no more about your things of another world, for
you will preach in vain. Each of us for himself, and let the sword be
umpire."

The Saracen drew his sword, boldly advancing upon Orlando, and a combat
began, so obstinate and so long, each warrior being a miracle of
prowess, that the story says it lasted from noon till night. Orlando
then seeing the stars come out was the first to propose a respite.

"What are we to do," said he, "now that daylight has left us?"

Agrican answered readily enough, "Let us repose in this meadow, and
renew the combat at dawn."

The repose was taken accordingly. Each tied up his horse, and reclined
himself on the grass, not far from the other, just as if they had been
friends, Orlando by the fountain, Agrican beneath a pine. It was a
beautiful clear night, and, as they talked together before addressing
themselves to sleep, the champion of Christendom, looking up at the
firmament, said, "That is a fine piece of workmanship, that starry
spectacle; God made it all, that moon of silver, and those stars of
gold, and the light of day, and the sun,--all for the sake of human
kind."

"You wish, I see, to talk of matters of faith," said the Tartar. "Now I
may as well tell you at once that I have no sort of skill in such
matters, nor learning of any kind. I never could learn anything when I
was a boy. I hated it so that I broke the man's head who was
commissioned to teach me; and it produced such an effect on others that
nobody ever afterwards dared so much as show me a book. My boyhood was
therefore passed, as it should be, in horsemanship and hunting, and
learning to fight. What is the good of a gentleman's poring all day
over a book? Prowess to the knight, and