As a flock of crows and jack-daws,
Host of owls, bats and buzzards
Flying round the weathered turret
Of an aged, leaning tower.
But one hope still gives him courage,
Is his sunshine in this darkness;
He knows well the camping gypsies,
Knows their weapons, strength and numbers,
And he hopes in this, believing
That perhaps with sudden onslaught
Or by some ruse, craft'ly plotted
They will free their Satanella
From the claws of angered people,
Who, much like a savage dragon
Sitting at a cavern's entrance
Waiting for its helpless victim,
Night and day, they too are waiting
Under Satanella's window
Seething mass forever shouting;
"Burn at stake the witch of witches!"
That is why, soon after daybreak,
Ere the guards changed at the prison,
He sent Beppo, childhood comrade,
To the gypsies 'twixt the ruins.
Since he sent him, he is waiting
Stretched upon a rack of doubting,
48
