The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second
Series, by Rafael Sabatini

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Title: The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series

Author: Rafael Sabatini

Posting Date: March 5, 2009 [EBook #7949]
Release Date: April, 2005

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORICAL NIGHTS ***

Produced by J. C. Byers and Abdulh Ameed Alhassan

THE HISTORICAL NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENT, SECOND SERIES

By Rafael Sabatini

To David Whitelaw

My Dear David,

Since the narratives collected here as well as in the preceding volume
under the title of the Historical Nights Entertainment--narratives
originally published in The Premier Magazine, which you so ably
edit--owe their being to your suggestion, it is fitting that some
acknowledgment of the fact should be made. To what is hardly less than
a duty, allow me to add the pleasure of dedicating to you, in earnest of
my friendship and esteem, not merely this volume, but the work of which
this volume is the second.

Sincerely yours,

Rafael Sabatini

London, June, 1919.

Preface

The kindly reception accorded to the first volume of the Historical
Nights Entertainment, issued in December of 1917, has encouraged me to
prepare the second series here assembled.

As in the case of the narratives that made up the first volume, I set
out again with the same ambitious aim of adhering scrupulously in every
instance to actual, recorded facts; and once again I find it desirable
at the outset to reveal how far the achievement may have fallen short of
the admitted aim.

On the whole, I have to confess to having allowed myself perhaps a wider
latitude, and to having taken greater liberties than was the case with
the essays constituting the previous collection. This, however, applies,
where applicable, to the parts rather than to the whole.

The only entirely apocryphal narrative here included is the first--"The
Absolution." This is one of those stories which, if resting upon no
sufficient authority to compel its acceptance, will, nevertheless,
resist all attempts at final refutation, having its roots at least
in th