Astolpho, Dudon, Oliver, and Florimart gazed at him with amazement.  It was with difficulty they knew him.  Astolpho, who had been warned of his condition by his holy monitor, was the first to recognize him.  As the paladins closed round Orlando, the madman dealt one and another a blow of his fist, which, if they had not been in armor, or he had had any weapon, would probably have despatched them; as it was, Dudon and Astolpho measured their length on the sand.  But Florimart seized him from behind, Sansonnet and another grasped his legs, and at last they succeeded in securing him with ropes.  They took him to the water-side and washed him well, and then Astolpho, having first bandaged his mouth so that he could not breathe except through his nose, brought the precious phial, uncorked it, and placed it adroitly under his nostrils, when the good Orlando took it all up in one breath.  O marvellous prodigy!  The paladin recovered in an instant all his intelligence.  He felt like one who had awakened from a painful dream, in which he had believed that monsters were about to tear him to pieces.  He seemed prostrated, silent, and abashed.  Florismart, Oliver, and Astolpho stood gazing upon him, while he turned his eyes around and on himself.  He seemed surprised to find himself naked, bound, and stretched on the sea-shore.  After a few moments he recognized his friends, and spoke to them in a tone so tender that they hastened to unbind him, and to supply him with garments.  Then they exerted themselves to console him, to diminish the weight with which his spirits were oppressed, and to make him forget the wretched condition into which he had been sunk.

Orlando, in recovering his reason, found himself also delivered from his insane attachment to the queen of Cathay.  His heart felt now no further influenced by the recollection of her than to be moved with an ardent desire to retrieve his fame by some distinguished exploit.  Astolpho would gladly have yielded to him the chief command of the army, but Orlando would not take from the friend to whom he owed so much the glory of the campaign; but in everything the two paladins acted in concert, and united their counsels.  They proposed to make a general assault on the city of Biserta, and were only waiting a favorable moment, when their plan was interrupted by new events.

Agramant, after the bloody battle which followed the infraction of the truce, found himself so weak that he saw it was in vain to attempt to remain in France.  So, in concert with Sobrino, the bravest and most trusted of his chiefs, he embarked to return to his own country, having previously sent off his few remaining troops in the same direction.  The vessel which carried Agramant and Sobrino approached the shore where the army of Astolpho lay encamped before Biserta, and having discovered this fact before it was too late, the king commanded the pilot to steer eastward, with a view to seek protection of the King of Egypt.  But the weather becoming rough, he consented to the advice of his companions, and sought harbor in an island which lies between Sicily and Africa.  There he found Gradasso, the warlike king of Sericane, who had come to France to possess himself of the horse Bayard and the sword Durindana; and having procured both these prizes was returning to his own country.