Page:Satanella (1932).pdf/60

 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,