The old woman laughed in derision.  Rinaldo remained in the den all night, and next day was taken to a place where a portcullis was lifted up, and the monster rushed forth.  He was a mixture of hog and serpent, larger than an ox, and not to be looked at without horror.  He had eyes like a traitor, the hands of a man, but clawed, a beard dabbled with blood, a skin of coarse variegated colours, too hard to be cut through, and two horns on his temples, which he could turn on all sides of him at his pleasure, and which were so sharp that they cut like a sword.

Rising on his hind-legs, and opening a mouth six palms in width, this horrible beast fell heavily on Rinaldo, who was nevertheless quick enough to give it a blow on the snout which increased its fury.  Returning the knight a tremendous cuff, it seized his coat of mail between breast and shoulder, and tore away a great strip of it down to the girdle, leaving the skin bare.  Every successive rent and blow was of the like irresistible violence; and though the Paladin himself never fought with more force and fury, he lost blood every instant.  The monster at length tearing his sword out of his hand, the Paladin surely began to think that his last hour was arrived.

Looking about to see what might possibly help him, he observed overhead a beam sticking out of a wall at the height of some ten feet.  He took a leap more than human; and reaching the beam with his hand, succeeded in flinging himself up across it.  Here he sat for hours, the furious brute continually trying to reach him.  Night-time then came on with a clear starry sky and moonlight, and the Paladin could discern no way of escaping, when he heard a sound of something, he knew not what, coming through the air like a bird.  Suddenly a female figure stood on the end of the beam, holding something in her hand towards him, and speaking in a loving voice.

It was Angelica, come with means for destroying the monster, and carrying the knight away.

But the moment Rinaldo saw her, desperate as seemed to be his condition, he renounced all offers of her assistance; and at length became so exasperated with her good offices, especially when she opened her arms and offered to bear him away in them, that he threatened to cast himself down to the monster if she did not go away.[11]

Angelica, saying that she would lose her life rather than displease him, descended from the beam; and having given the monster a cake of wax which fastened up his teeth, and then caught and fixed him in a set of nooses she had brought for that purpose, took her miserable departure.  Rinaldo upon this got down from the beam himself; and having succeeded, though with the greatest difficulty, in beating and squeezing the life out of the monster, dealt such havoc among the people of the castle who assailed him, that the horrible old woman, whose crimes had made her the creature’s housekeeper, and led her to take delight in its cruelty, threw herself headlong from a tower.  The Paladin then took his way forth, turning his back on the castle and the sea-shore.