Roland once more pushed on; but as he advanced, the fortress rose into the skies, until, after about an hour’s walking, he found himself with nothing before him save the blank horizon of the desert. Then despair seized him. He sank on his knees, crossed himself, and shed four tears, the first he had ever wept. They fell on the sand, and there formed four springs for a stream of cool and clear water. Roland received from this new vigour, and having rendered thanks to Providence, he was preparing to move forward, when he remarked with surprise a great stirring of the sand. Little clouds of dust began to rise in all directions, although there was not a breath stirring. Then the sand began to whirl round incessantly, marking a great circle at a short distance from our hero. As it began to whirl, it heaped itself up, drawn towards the centre by some strange force of attraction. You would have said that some gigantic polypus was sucking up all the sand of the desert. After a few minutes there mounted, still eddying round, a huge column, which grew as Roland watched it, until the summit was lost to sight in the sky. A hot wind, like the harmattan of the Guinea coast, rose and drove the sand before it in clouds. The sun turned red as molten iron. The pillar of sand at last lost its equilibrium, and fell with a horrible rushing sound. Roland closed his eyes, but he did not recoil. Hearing a great roar of laughter, he instinctively clutched his sword by the hilt. What he saw next induced him to draw it from its sheath. The sand, in falling, had reared a mound, the base of which formed an enormous circle, in the centre of which Roland perceived, with surprise, a huge monster buried in sand to his waist. It was Eblis, the Devil of the East. [Illustration: 162] His Majesty was a hundred feet in height, which is a respectable size, even for a demon of the highest rank. His black skin, striped with red, was covered with small scales, which made it glisten like armour. His hair was so long and curly, a snake might have lost its way in it. His flat nose was pierced with a ring of admirable workmanship, as you see done to the wild bulls of the Roman Campagna. His white teeth, set with precious stones, gave to his smile a very variegated appearance. His small eyes assumed, one after the other, all the prismatic colours, which made it impossible to sustain his gaze. His ears, which exactly resembled those of an elephant, flapped on his shoulders; but he had, to make up for it, a tail sixty feet long, terminating in a hooked claw, which could have wielded the Monument easily as a toothpick. Eblis had no other covering than his wings, which were large, soft, and marvellously pliable, and in which he delighted to wrap himself. Conceive, further, that a phosphorescent gleam played incessantly over the monster’s skin, and you will easily understand why Roland unsheathed Durandal. Eblis was writhing with laughter.