Here Sacripant and Marphisa were left engaged in a single combat, which was still continued with mutual animosity; while Angelica, surrounded by a group of warriors, sate contemplating the fight from the ramparts of the citadel. While the attention of all was thus engaged, Brunello, who (it will be remembered) had undertaken to steal Angelica's ring, arrived beneath the walls of Albracca, scaled the rock and walls of the fortress, while the crowd was watching the duel, and disputing on its probable result, approached the princess unobserved, and, slipping the ring from her finger, escaped amid the confusion which followed.
Having descended safely to the ground, and swam a water by which the citadel was surrounded, the dwarf perceived that the two combatants had separated for an interval of repose, and immediately meditated a new exercise of his art. With this view, he approached Sacripant, who, absorbed in an amorous reverie, sate apart, upon his courser, and having first loosened the girths, and supported the saddle by a piece of wood, withdrew the horse from under him.*
* The reader will recollect the imitation of this absurd incident in "Don Quixote," whose squire's ass, Dapple, is stolen in a similar manner.
Marphisa, who was at a little distance, witnessed this with wonder, and, before she recovered from her astonishment, was herself plundered of her sword. Marphisa is no sooner aware of the theft, than she pursues the robber; but he, mounted upon Frontilatte, his new acquisition, soon distances the pursuer.
While Angelica, who felt her misfortune yet more than the others, is in despair at the loss of her treasure, an alarm is given by the warder, who reports the arrival of a new army before Albracca. This was a Turkish force, led by Caramano, brother of Torindo, one of the princes who had been seized and imprisoned by Truffaldino, and who, having refused to enter into the engagement to which the others agreed, on his delivering them from durance, now brought this brother against Albracca.
Angelica's last hopes of deliverance rest upon Gradasso; who, it seems, was her relation, and who was meditating anew the invasion of France. Hence Sacripant undertakes a secret embassy to this prince, with the view of soliciting his succour.
Rodomont, this while, who was too impatient to wait for Agramant's attack upon Charlemagne, had already sailed for France. A tremendous storm wrecked his fleet upon the coast of that kingdom; but he, landing with such force as the tempest had left him, made good his footing, and routed the Christians in more engagements than one: though the balance at last turned in their favour.
Previous, however, to this, Gano, or Ganelon, (as he is sometimes called) enters into a traitorous correspondence with Marsilius, whom he invites into France.
While great events are preparing in this quarter, the author resumes the story of Orlando, who was journeying with Falerina towards the bridge, where so many prisoners were entrapped. On their way thither, however, they arrived at a yet more perilous pass: this was the bridge, and lake into which the felon warrior leaped with Rinaldo in his arms. Falerina, enchantress as she was, turned pale at the sight of this place, and cursed the hour in which they had taken the road which conducted them thither; informing Orlando that they were approaching a snare, laid by Morgana; who plotted revenge against a knight who had destroyed many of her spells, and set at nought her riches and her power.
For this purpose she had formed the lake; and selected, as a defender of the pass, a man named Arridano, a churl of the most ferocious and pitiless character she could find. Him she had clothed in invulnerable arms, and charmed in such a manner, that his strength always increased in a six-fold proportion to that of the adversary with whom he was matched. Hence, no one had hitherto escaped from the contest; since, such was his strength and power of endurance, that he could breathe freely under water. Hence, having grappled with a knight, and sunk with him to the bottom of the lake, he returned, bearing his arms in triumph to the top.