Obsessed by childhood memories of Gypsies, Ambrogio Smythe leaves his ancestral home in Britain for Italy, always aware of the lurking menace of the hated Napoleon Bonaparte. When the war begins again in earnest, Ambrogio finds himself "happily marooned in Tuscany." Here he meets a wandering storyteller who spins a magical yarn about a Gypsy babe kidnapped by a demon.