s and veils, and the
horses' feet becoming entangled in these, numbers of the riders were
thrown, and the trim lines of the troops broken.

Seeing the confusion into which they had been thrown, Ziska gave the
order to charge, and in a short time the army that was to defeat him was
flying in a panic across the plain, a broken and beaten mob. Another
army marched against him, and was similarly defeated; and the citizens
of Prague, finding that no satisfactory terms could be made with the
emperor, recalled Ziska, and entered into alliance with him. The
one-eyed patriot was now lord of the land, all Bohemia being at his beck
and call.

Meanwhile Sigismund, the emperor, was slowly gathering his forces to
invade the rebellious land. The reign of cruelty continued, each side
treating its prisoners barbarously. The Imperialists branded theirs with
a cup, the Hussites theirs with a cross, on their foreheads. The
citizens of Breslau joined those of Prague, and emulated them by
flinging their councillors out of the town-house windows. In return the
German miners of Kuttenberg threw sixteen hundred Hussites down the
mines. Such is religious war, the very climax of cruelty.

In June, 1420, the threatened invasion came. Sigismund led an army, one
hundred thousand strong, into the revolted land, fulminating vengeance
as he marched. He reached Prague and entered the castle of Wisherad,
which commanded it. Ziska fortified the mountain of Witlow (now called
Ziskaberg), which also commanded the city. Sigismund, finding that he
had been outgeneralled, and that his opponent held the controlling
position, waited and temporized, amusing himself meanwhile by assuming
the crown of Bohemia, and sowing dissension in his army by paying the
Slavonian and Hungarian troops with the jewels taken from the royal
palaces and the churches, while leaving the Germans unpaid. The Germans,
furious, marched away. The emperor was obliged to follow. The
ostentatious invasion was at an end, and scarcely a blow had been
struck.

But Sigismund had no sooner gone than trouble arose in Prague. The
citizens, the nobility, and Ziska's followers were all at odds. The
Taborites--those strict republicans and religious reformers who had made
Mount Tabor their head-quarters--were in power, and ruled the city with
a rod of iron, destroying all the remaining splendor of the churches and
sternly prohibiting every display of ostentation by the people. Death
was named as th