Rodomont treated this declaration of the old prophet with scorn, and it would probably have been held of little weight by the council, had not the aged king, oppressed by the weight of years, expired in the very act of reaffirming his prediction.  This made so deep an impression on the council that it was unanimously resolved to postpone the war until an effort should be made to win Rogero to the camp.

King Agramant thereupon proclaimed that the sovereignty of a kingdom should be the reward of whoever should succeed in obtaining the ring of Angelica.  Brunello the dwarf, the subtlest thief in all Africa, undertook to procure it.

In prosecution of this design, he made the best of his way to Angelica’s kingdom, and arrived beneath the walls of Albracca while the besieging army was encamped before the fortress.  While the attention of the garrison was absorbed by the battle that raged below he scaled the walls, approached the Princess unnoticed, slipped the ring from her finger, and escaped unobserved.  He hastened to the seaside, and, finding a vessel ready to sail, embarked, and arrived at Biserta, in Africa.  Here he found Agramant impatient for the talisman which was to foil the enchantments of Atlantes and to put Rogero into his hands.  The dwarf, kneeling before the king, presented him with the ring, and Agramant, delighted at the success of his mission, crowned him in recompense King of Tingitana.

All were now anxious to go in quest of Rogero.  The cavalcade accordingly departed, and in due time arrived at the mountain of Carena.

At the bottom of this was a fruitful and well-wooded plain, watered by a large river, and from this plain was descried a beautiful garden on the mountain-top, which contained the mansion of Atlantes; but the ring, which discovered what was before invisible, could not, though it revealed this paradise, enable Agramant or his followers to enter it.  So steep and smooth was the rock by nature, that even Brunello failed in every attempt to scale it.  He did not, for this, despair of accomplishing the object; but, having obtained Agramant’s consent, caused the assembled courtiers and knights to celebrate a tournament upon the plain below.  This was done with the view of seducing Rogero from his fastness, and the stratagem was attended with success.

Rogero joined the tourney, and was presented by Agramant with a splendid horse, Frontino, and a magnificent sword.  Having learned from Agramant his intended invasion of France, he gladly consented to join the expedition.

Rodomont, meanwhile, was too impatient to wait for Agramant’s arrangements, and embarked with all the forces he could raise, made good his landing on the coast of France, and routed the Christians in several encounters.  Previously to this, however, Gano, or Ganelon (as he is sometimes called), the traitor, enemy of Orlando and the other nephews of Charlemagne, had entered into a traitorous correspondence with Marsilius, the Saracen king of Spain, whom he invited into France.  Marsilius, thus encouraged, led an army across the frontiers, and joined Rodomont.  This was the situation of things when Rinaldo and the other knights who had obeyed the summons of Dudon set forward on their return to France.