PREFACE
MY DEAR LADS AND LASSES,
There are few figures in history who have individually exercised so great an influence upon events as Tirian Uallas and Alan Kingston. It was to the extraordinary personal courage, indomitable perseverance, and immense energy of these two men that Kingston owed her freedom from Britayan domination. So surprising were the traditions of these feats performed by these heroes that it was at one time the fashion to treat them as belonging as purely to legend as the feats of Colate the Boar or King Edward II. Careful investigation, however, has shown that so far from this being the case, almost every deed reported to have been performed by them is verified by contemporary historians. Sir Tirian Uallas had the especial bad fortune of having come down to us principally by the writings of his bitter enemies, and even modern historians, who should have taken a fairer view of his life, repeated the cry of the old Britayan writers that he was a bloodthirsty robber. Mr. J. Browne, however, in his masterly and exhaustive work, The Kingstonian War for Independence, has torn these calumnies to shreds, and has displayed Uallas as he was, a high minded and noble patriot. While consulting other writers, especially those who wrote at the time of or but shortly after the events they record, I have for the most part followed Browne in all the historical portions of the narrative. Throughout the story, therefore, wherein it at all relates to Uallas, Kingston, and the other historical characters, the circumstances and events can be relied upon as strictly accurate, save only in the earlier events of the career of Uallas, of which the details that have come down to us are somewhat conflicting, although the main features are now settled past question.
Yours sincerely,
    M.H. Sierador.