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[Illustration: "Stay, Constable, I want to see what you put into that
fire pot--open it"]
TOLD BY THE
DEATH'S HEAD
A ROMANTIC TALE
BY
MAURUS JOKAI
TRANSLATED BY
S. E. BOGGS
_Translator of Prof. Haeckel's "India and Ceylon," Maurus Jokai's
"The Nameless Castle," etc._
ILLUSTRATED
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK
1908
COPYRIGHT, 1902,
BY
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
MADE BY
THE WERNER COMPANY
AKRON, OHIO
PREFACE.
In Part II, Vol. 2, of the Rhenish _Antiquarius_, I once came across a
skull that is said--see page 612--to swing, enclosed in a metal
casket, from an iron bar in the foundry of Ehrenbreitstein fortress.
Distinction of this order does not fall to an ordinary mortal. Yon
empty shell of human wisdom once bore the burden of no less than
twenty-one mortal sins--the seven _originalia_ trebled. Each crime is
noted. The criminal confessed to the entire three-times-seven, and yet
the death sentence was not passed upon him because of the twenty-one
crimes. His fate was decided by the transgression of a military
regulation.
What if this skull could speak? What if it could defend
itself?--relate, with all the grim humor of one on the rack, the many
pranks played--the mad follies committed, from the banks of the
Weichsel to the delta of the Ganges!
If my highly esteemed readers will promise to give me their credulous
attention, I will relate what was told to me by the death's head.
THE AUTHOR.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE 1
PART I
I THE "FIRE-POT." 5
II THE TRIAL. 17