ver ceased hastening till he reached
the place where he landed. The bark was still on the shore. He sprang
into it, and pushed off, though he saw nobody in it but himself. It was
in vain for him to try to control its movements, for it dashed on as if
in fury, till it reached a distant shore covered with a gloomy forest.
Here Rinaldo, surrounded by enchantments of a very different sort from
those which he had lately resisted, was entrapped into a pit.

The pit belonged to a castle called Altaripa, which was hung with human
heads, and painted red with blood. As the paladin was viewing the scene
with amazement a hideous old woman made her appearance at the edge of
the pit, and told him that he was destined to be thrown to a monster,
who was only kept from devastating the whole country by being supplied
with living human flesh. Rinaldo said, "Be it so; let me but remain
armed as I am, and I fear nothing." The old woman laughed in derision.
Rinaldo remained in the pit all night, and the next morning was taken
to the place where the monster had his den. It was a court surrounded
by a high wall. Rinaldo was shut in with the beast, and a terrible
combat ensued. Rinaldo was unable to make any impression on the scales
of the monster, while he, on the contrary, with his dreadful claws,
tore away plate and mail from the paladin. Rinaldo began to think his
last hour was come, and cast his eyes around and above to see if there
was any means of escape. He perceived a beam projecting from the wall
at the height of some ten feet, and, taking a leap almost miraculous,
he succeeded in reaching it, and in flinging himself up across it. Here
he sat for hours, the hideous brute continually trying to reach him.
All at once he heard the sound of something coming through the air like
a bird, and suddenly Angelica herself alighted on the end of the beam.
She held something in her hand towards him, and spoke to him in a
loving voice. But the moment Rinaldo saw her he commanded her to go
away, refused all her offers of assistance, and at length declared
that, if she did not leave him, he would cast himself down to the
monster, and meet his fate.

Angelica, saying she would lose her life rather than displease him,
departed; but first she threw to the monster a cake of wax she had
prepared, and spread around him a rope knotted with nooses. The beast
took the bait, and, finding his teeth glued together by the wax, vented
his fury in bounds and leaps