Angelica rode on her way without suspicion, but when arrived at the shore, the demon urged the animal headlong into the water.  Angelica in vain attempted to turn him back to the land; he continued his course till, as night approached, he landed with his burden on a sandy headland.

Angelica, finding herself alone, abandoned in this frightful solitude, remained without movement, as if stupefied, with hands joined and eyes turned towards heaven, till at last, pouring forth a torrent of tears, she exclaimed:  “Cruel fortune, have you not yet exhausted your rage against me?  To what new miseries do you doom me?  Alas! then finish your work!  Deliver me a prey to some ferocious beast, or by whatever fate you choose bring me to an end.  I will be thankful to you for terminating my life and my misery.”  At last, exhausted by her sorrows, she fell asleep, and sunk prostrate on the sand.

Before recounting what next befell, we must declare what place it was upon which the unhappy lady was now thrown.  In the sea that washes the coast of Ireland there is an island called Ebuda, whose inhabitants, once numerous, had been wasted by the anger of Proteus till there were now but few left.  This deity was incensed by some neglect of the usual honors which he had in old times received from the inhabitants of the land, and, to execute his vengeance, had sent a horrid sea-monster, called an Orc, to devour them.  Such were the terrors of his ravages that the whole people of the isle had shut themselves up in the principal town, and relied on their walls alone to protect them.  In this distress they applied to the Oracle for advice, and were directed to appease the wrath of the sea-monster by offering to him the fairest virgin that the country could produce.

Now it so happened that the very day when this dreadful oracle was announced, and when the fatal mandate had gone forth to seek among the fairest maidens of the land one to be offered to the monster, some sailors, landing on the beach where Angelica was, beheld that beauty as she lay asleep.

O blind Chance! whose power in human affairs is but too great, canst thou then abandon to the teeth of a horrible monster those charms which different sovereigns took arms against one another to possess?  Alas! the lovely Angelica is destined to be the victim of those cruel islanders.

Still asleep, she was bound by the Ebudians, and it was not until she was carried on board the vessel that she came to a knowledge of her situation.  The wind filled the sails and wafted the ship swiftly to the port, where all that beheld her agreed that she was unquestionably the victim selected by Proteus himself to be his prey.  Who can tell the screams, the mortal anguish of this unhappy maiden, the reproaches she addressed even to the heavens themselves, when the dreadful information of her cruel fate was made known to her?  I cannot; let me rather turn to a happier part of my story.