Chapter 10

CHAPTER X.
THE ORC. WE left the charming Angelica at the moment when, in her flight from
her contending lovers, Sacripant and Rinaldo, she met an aged
hermit. We have seen that her request to the hermit was to furnish her
the means of gaining the sea-coast, eager to avoid Rinaldo, whom she
hated, by leaving France and Europe itself. The pretended hermit,
who was no other than a vile magician, knowing well that it would
not be agreeable to his false gods to aid Angelica in this
undertaking, feigned to comply with her desire. He supplied her a
horse, into which he had by his arts caused a subtle devil to enter,
and having mounted Angelica on the animal, directed her what course to
take to reach the sea.
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