Casting his eyes on the coast of Ebuda, the rider of the hippogriff beheld the amazing spectacle of the lady tied to the rock; and struck with a beauty which reminded him of her whom he loved, he resolved to deliver her from a peril which soon became too manifest.

A noise was heard in the sea; and the huge monster, the Orc, appeared half in the water and half out of it, like a ship which drags its way into port after a long and tempestuous voyage.[9] It seemed a huge mass without form except the head, which had eyes sticking out, and bristles like a boar.  Ruggiero, who had dashed down to the side of Angelica, and attempted to encourage her in vain, now rose in the air; and the monster, whose attention was diverted by a shadow on the water of a couple of great wings dashing round and above him, presently felt a spear on his Deck; but only to irritate him, for it could not pierce the skin.  In vain Ruggiero tried to do so a hundred times.  The combat was of no more effect than that of the fly with the mastiff, when it dashes against his eyes and mouth, and at last comes once too often within the gape of his snapping teeth.  The orc raised such a foam and tempest in the waters with the flapping of his tail, that the knight of the hippogriff hardly knew whether he was in air or sea.  He began to fear that the monster would disable the creature’s wings; and where would its rider be then?  He therefore had recourse to a weapon which he never used but at the last moment, when skill and courage became of no service:  he unveiled the magic shield.  But first he flew to Angelica, and put on her finger the ring which neutralised its effect.  The shield blazed on the water like another sun.  The orc, beholding it, felt it smite its eyes like lightning; and rolling over its unwieldy body in the foam which it had raised, lay turned up, like a dead fish, insensible.  But it was not dead; and Ruggiero was so long in making ineffectual efforts to pierce it, that Angelica cried out to him for God’s sake to release her while he had the opportunity, lest the monster should revive.  “Take Ime with you,” she said; “drown me; any thing, rather than let me be food for this horror.”

The knight released her instantly.  He set her behind him on the winged horse, and in a few minutes was in the air, transported with having deprived the brute of his delicate supper.  Then, turning as he went, he imprinted on her a thousand kisses.  He had intended to make a tour of Spain, which was not far off; but he now altered his mind, and descended with his prize into a lovely spot, on the coast of Brittany, encircled with oaks full of nightingales, with here and there a solitary mountain.

It was a little green meadow with a brook.[10]