Otto of the Silver Hand  by Howard Pyle

Afterword


[Illustration]

T HE ruins of Drachenhausen were rebuilt, for the walls were there as sound as ever, though empty and gaping to the sky; but it was no longer the den of a robber baron for beneath the scutcheon over the great gate was carved a new motto of the Vuelphs; a motto which the Emperor Rudolph himself had given:


"Manus argentea quam manus ferrea melior est"