Alcasto went; and he went farther than the rest, and the trembling woodcutters once more prepared their axes; but, on a sudden, there sprang up between them and the trees a wall of fire which girded the whole forest.  It had glowing battlements and towers; and on these there appeared armed spirits, with the strangest and most bewildering aspects.  Alcasto retired—­slowly indeed, but with shame and terror; nor had he the courage to re-appear before his commander.  Godfrey had him brought, but could hardly get a word from his lips.  The man talked like one in a dream.

At last Tancred went.  He would have, gone before; but he had neither thought the task so difficult, nor did he care for any thing that was going forward.  His mind was occupied with the dead Clorinda.  He had now work that aroused him; and he set out in good earnest for the forest, not unmoved in his imagination, but resolved to defy all appearances.

Arrived at the wall of fire, Tancred halted a moment, and looked up at the visages on its battlements, not without alarm.  Many reflections passed swiftly through his mind, some urging him forward, others withholding; but he concluded with stepping right through the fire.  It did not resist him:  he did not feel it.

The fire vanished; and, in its stead, there poured down a storm of hail and rain, black as midnight.  This vanished also.

Tancred stood amazed for an instant, and then passed on.  He was soon in the thick of the wood, and for some time made his way with difficulty.  On a sudden, he issued forth into a large open glade, like an amphitheatre, in which there was nothing but a cypress-tree that stood in the middle.  The cypress was marked with hieroglyphical characters, mixed with some words in the Syrian tongue which he could read; and these words requested the stranger to spare the fated place, nor trouble the departed souls who were there shut up in the trees.  Meantime the wind was constantly moaning around it; and in the moaning was a sound of human sighs and tears.

Tancred’s heart, for a moment, was overcome with awe and pity; but recollecting himself, and resolving to make amends for his credulity, he smote with all his might at the cypress.  The blow, wonderful to see, produced an effusion of blood, which dyed the grass about the root.  Tancred’s hair stood on end.  He smote, however, again, with double violence, resolving to see the end of the marvel; and then he heard a woful voice issuing as from a tomb.

“Hast thou not hurt me,” it said, “Tancred, enough already?  Hast thou slain the human body which I once joyfully inhabited; and now must thou cut and rend me, even in this wretched enclosure?  My name was Clorinda.  Every tree which thou beholdest is the habitation of some Christian or Pagan soul; for all come hither that are slain beneath the walls of the city, compelled by I know not what power, or for what reason.  Every bough in the forest is alive; and when thou cuttest down a tree, thou slayest a soul.”