Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
THE INVASION OF FRANCE. AGRAMANT, King of Africa, convoked the kings, his vassals, to
deliberate in council. He reminded them of the injuries he had
sustained from France, that his father had fallen in battle with
Charlemagne, and that his early years had hitherto not allowed him
to wipe out the stain of former defeats. He now proposed to them to
carry war into France.
Sobrino, his wisest councillor, opposed the project, representing
the rashness of it; but Rodomont, the young and fiery king of Algiers,
denounced Sobrino's counsel as base and cowardly, declaring himself
impatient for the enterprise. The king of the Garamantes, venerable
for his age and renowned for his prophetic lore, interposed, and
assured the King that such an attempt would be sure to fail, unless he
could first get on his side a youth marked out by destiny as the
fitting compeer of the most puissant knights of France, the young
Rogero, descended in direct line from Hector of Troy. This prince
was now a dweller upon the mountain Carena, where Atlantes, his
fosterfather, a powerful magician, kept him in retirement, having
discovered by his art that his pupil would be lost to him if allowed
to mingle with the world. To break the spells of Atlantes, and draw
Rogero from his retirement, one only means was to be found. It was a
ring possessed by Angelica, Princess of Cathay, which was a talisman
against all enchantments. If this ring could be procured, all would go
well; without it, the enterprise was desperate.
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