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 the soil of fact. It is given in the
rather discredited Portuguese chronicles of Acenheiro, and finds
place, more or less as related here, in Duarte Galvao's