blue, and the birds were singing round about them in the trees.  Her riches astonished them no less.  The side of the castle that looked on the gardens was all marble and gold; a banquet awaited them beside a water on a shady lawn, consisting of the exquisitest viands on the costliest plate; and a hundred beautiful maidens attended them while they feasted.  The enchantress was all smiles and delight; and such was her art, that although she bestowed no favour on any body beyond his banquet and his hopes, every body thought himself the favoured lover.

But no sooner was the feast over, than the greatest and worst of their astonishments ensued.  The lady quitted them, saying she should return presently.  She did so with a troubled and unfriendly countenance, having a book in one hand, and a little wand in the other.  She read in the book in a low voice, and while she was reading shook the little wand; and the guests, altering in every part of their being, and shrinking into minute bodies, felt an inclination, which they obeyed, to plunge into the water beside them.  They were fish.  In a little while they were again men, looking her in the face with dread and amazement.  She had restored them to their humanity.  She regarded them with a severe countenance, and said “You have tasted my power; I can exercise it far more terribly—­can put you in dungeons for ever—­can turn you to roots in the ground—­to flints within the rock.  Beware of my wrath, and please me; quit your faiths for mine, and fight against the blasphemer Godfrey.”

Every Christian but one rejected her alternative with abhorrence.  Him she made one of her champions; the rest were tied and bound, and after being kept a while in a dungeon were sent off as a present to the King of Egypt, with an escort that came from Damascus to fetch them.

Exulting was left the fair and bigoted magician; but she little guessed what a new fortune awaited them on the road.  The discord with which the powers of evil had seconded her endeavours to weaken the Christian camp, had turned in this instance against herself.  It had made Rinaldo a wanderer; it had brought his wanderings into this very path; and he now met the prisoners, and bade defiance to the escort.  A battle ensued, in which the hero won his accustomed victory.  The Christians, receiving the armour of their foes, joyfully took their way back to the camp; and one of the escort, who escaped the slaughter, returned to Armida with news of the deliverance of her captives.

The mortified enchantress took horse and went in pursuit of Rinaldo, with wrath and vengeance in her heart.  She tracked him from place to place, till she knew he must arrive on the banks of the Orontes; and there, making a stealthy circuit, she cast a spell, and lay in wait for him in a little island which divided the stream in two.[3]

Rinaldo came up with his squires; he beheld on the bank a pillar of white marble, and beside it on the water a little boat.  The pillar presented an inscription, inviting travellers to cross to the island and behold a wonder of the world.  The hero accepted the invitation; but as the boat was too small to hold more than one person, and the circumstance probably an appeal to his courage, he bade his squires wait for him, and proceeded by himself.