Chapter 18 - Page 2

compelled to allow the
force of what the king said; but, unable to contain himself long, he
lifted up his face, radiant with triumphant wickedness, and exclaimed:
"Every word you utter is truth; die he must, and die also must Oliver,
who struck me that foul blow at court. Is it treachery to punish
affronts like these? I have planned everything,- I have settled
everything already with their besotted master. Orlando will come to
your borders,- to Roncesvalles,- for the purpose of receiving the
tribute. Charles will await him at the foot of the mountains.
Orlando will bring but a small band with him: you, when you meet
him, will have secretly your whole army at your back. You surround
him, and who receives tribute then?"
The new Judas had scarcely uttered these words when his exultation
was interrupted by a change in the face of nature. The sky was
suddenly overcast, there was thunder and lightning, a laurel was split
in two from head to foot, and the Carob-tree under which Gan was
sitting, which is said to be the species of tree on which Judas
Iscariot hung himself, dropped one of its pods on his head.
Marsilius, as well as Gan, was appalled at this omen; but on
assembling his soothsayers they came to the conclusion that the
laurel-tree turned the omen against the Emperor, the successor of
the Caesars, though one of them renewed the consternation of Gan by
saying that he did not understand the meaning of the tree of Judas,
and intimating that perhaps the ambassador could explain it. Gan
relieved his vexation by anger; the habit of wickedness prevailed over
all other considerations; and the king prepared to march to
Roncesvalles at the head of all his forces.
Gan wrote to Charlemagne to say how humbly and submissively
Marsilius was coming to pay the tribute into the hands of Orlando, and
how handsome it would be of the Emperor to meet him halfway, and so be
ready to receive him after the payment at his camp. He added a
brilliant account of the tribute, and the accompanying presents. The
good Emperor wrote in turn to say how pleased he was with the
ambassador's diligence, and that matters were arranged precisely as he
wished. His court, however, had its suspicions still, though they
little thought Gan's object in bringing Charles into the
neighborhood of Roncesvalles was to deliver him into the hands of
Marsilius, after Orlando should have been destroyed by him.
Orlando, however, did as his lord and sovereign desired. He went
to Roncesvalles, accompanied by a moderate train of warriors, not
dreaming of the atrocity that awaited him. Gan, meanwhile, had
hastened back to France, in order to show himself free and easy in the
presence of Charles, and secure the success of his plot; while
Marsilius, to