



Produced by Angus Christian





OTTO OF THE SILVER HAND

By Howard Pyle





CONTENTS

     I.    The Dragon's House,
     II.   How the Baron Went Forth to Shear,
     III.  How the Baron Came Home Shorn,
     IV.   The White Cross on the Hill,
     V.    How Otto Dwelt at St. Michaelsburg,
     VI.   How Otto Lived in the Dragon's House,
     VII.  The Red Cock Crows on Drachenhausen,
     VIII. In the House of the Dragon Scorner,
     IX.   How One-eyed Hans Came to Trutz-Drachen,
     X.    How Hans Brought Terror to the Kitchen,
     XI.   How Otto was Saved,
     XII.  A Ride for Life,
     XIII. How Baron Conrad Held the Bridge,
     XIV.  How Otto Saw the Great Emperor,




FOREWORD.

Between the far away past history of the world, and that which lies near
to us; in the time when the wisdom of the ancient times was dead and
had passed away, and our own days of light had not yet come, there lay a
great black gulf in human history, a gulf of ignorance, of superstition,
of cruelty, and of wickedness.

That time we call the dark or middle ages.

Few records remain to us of that dreadful period in our world's history,
and we only know of it through broken and disjointed fragments that have
been handed down to us through the generations.

Yet, though the world's life then was so wicked and black, there yet
remained a few good men and women here and there (mostly in peaceful
and quiet monasteries, far from the thunder and the glare of the worlds
bloody battle), who knew the right and the truth and lived according to
what they knew; who preserved and tenderly cared for the truths that the
dear Christ taught, and lived and died for in Palestine so long ago.

This tale that I am about to tell is of a