giero, incessantly pursuing him,
issued forth into a great meadow, containing a noble mansion; and here he
beheld the giant in the act of dashing through the gate of it with his
prize.

The mansion was an enchanted one, raised by the anxious old guardian of
Ruggiero for the purpose of enticing into it both the youth himself, and
all from whom he could experience danger in the course of his adventures.
Orlando had just been brought there by a similar device, that of the
apparition of a knight carrying off Angelica; for the supposed Bradamante
was equally a deception, and the giant no other than the magician
himself. There also were the knights Ferragus, and Brandimart, and
Grandonio, and King Sacripant, all searching for something they had
missed. They wandered about the house to no purpose; and sometimes
Ruggiero heard Bradamante calling him; and sometimes Orlando beheld
Angelica's face at a window.[12]

At length the beauty arrived in her own veritable person. She was again
on horseback, and once more on the look-out for a knight who should
conduct her safely home--whether Orlando or Sacripant she had not
determined. The same road which had brought Ruggiero to the enchanted
house having done as much for her, she now entered it invisibly by means
of the ring.

Finding both the knights in the place, and feeling under the necessity of
coming to a determination respecting one or the other, Angelica made up
her mind in favour of King Sacripant, whom she reckoned to be more at her
disposal. Contriving therefore to meet him by himself, she took the
ring out of her mouth, and suddenly appeared before him. He had hardly
recovered from his amazement, when Ferragus and Orlando himself came up;
and as Angelica now was visible to all, she took occasion to deliver them
from the enchanted house by hastening before them into a wood. They all
followed of course, in a frenzy of anxiety and delight; but the lady
being perplexed with the presence of the whole three, and recollecting
that she had again obtained possession of her ring, resolved to trust her
safe conduct to invisibility alone; so, in the old fashion, she left
them to new quarrels by suddenly vanishing from their eyes. She stopped,
nevertheless, a while to laugh at them, as they all turned their
stupefied faces hither and thither; then suffered them to pass her in a
blind thunder of pursuit; and so, gently following at her leisure on the
same road, took her way towards the