combat ensued. Rinaldo was unable to make any impression on the
scales of the monster, while he, on the contrary, with his
dreadful claws, tore away plate and mail from the paladin. Rinaldo
began to think his last hour was come, and cast his eyes around
and above to see if there was any means of escape. He perceived a
beam projecting from the wall at the height of some ten feet, and,
taking a leap almost miraculous, he succeeded in reaching it, and
in flinging himself up across it. Here he sat for hours, the
hideous brute continually trying to reach him. All at once he
heard the sound of something coming through the air like a bird,
and suddenly Angelica herself alighted on the end of the beam. She
held something in her hand towards him, and spoke to him in a
loving voice. But the moment Rinaldo saw her he commanded her to
go away, refused all her offers of assistance, and at length
declared that, if she did not leave him, he would cast himself
down to the monster, and meet his fate.

Angelica, saying she would lose her life rather than displease
him, departed; but first she threw to the monster a cake of wax
she had prepared, and spread around him a rope knotted with
nooses. The beast took the bait, and, finding his teeth glued
together by the wax, vented his fury in bounds and leaps, and,
soon getting entangled in the nooses, drew them tight by his
struggles, so that he could scarcely move a limb.

Rinaldo, watching his chance, leapt down upon his back, seized him
round the neck, and throttled him, not relaxing his gripe till the
beast fell dead.

Another difficulty remained to be overcome. The walls were of