they had cleaned the chair he was to sit
upon. But the majority thought otherwise.
It was determined to seek a pope through
whom, afterwards, the desired good things
might be added to the church. So it
was, that in fourteen 'seventeen, Cardinal
Otto, of Colonna, became Pope Marten the
Fifth. Then it became the pope's business
to see to the reformation of the church, and
there was mightily soon an end of lively hope
upon that subject. Even the schism in the
papacy did not come to an end for another
thirty years.

But the Council of Constance came to
an end in the beginning of the year
fourteen 'eighteen, having "by no means
answered the general expectation of the
world." John Huss, whom it burnt, was
so far from being a theological reformer,
that he took to the council a certificate
of orthodoxy from the Inquisitor-General
of his district. His revolt was mainly
for the national rights of his church in
Bohemia.

In the year after the council closed,
the soldier, John de Troeznow, called Ziska,
or the one-eyed, who, after the burning of
Huss, deeply resented what he called "the
bloody affront suffered by Bohemians at
Constance," placed himself at the head of
an armed people against the aggressions of
Rome on the liberty of the Bohemian
Church. King Wenzel died, and his brother,
the Emperor Sigismund, who acted with
the pope, and had dishonoured his pledge
of safe conduct by which Huss had been
decoyed to Constance, claimed succession
in Bohemia. This threatened the
Bohemians with forfeiture alike of civil and
religious liberty. Ziska then raised national
war against both pope and emperor. He
became master of Prague, was victorious
over Sigismund on Mount Wittkow, rudely
maintained the liberties of his church, sword
in hand, and, when an arrow from the wall
of Rubi pierced his one sound eye, and left
him wholly blind, talked still of joining
battle. " I have yet," he said, "my blood
to shed. Let me be gone." He still
battled, suffering defeat only once, until
Sigismund submitted to the claim of the
Bohemians for liberty of worship, and gave
them Ziska for their governor. Ziska
died of plague, while, in fourteen 'twenty-
four, this treaty was in progress; and the
war continued for eleven years after his
death. The Bohemians buried their hero
in the church at Czaslow, and wrote this
inscription over his grave: "Here lies
John Ziska, who, having defended his
country against the encroachments of papal
tyranny, rests in this hallowed place in
despite of the pope."

THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.

A YACHTING STORY.

CHAPTER X. THE BRIDGE.

THE fashionable Mr. Conway was much
interested in this little first act which was
working itself out so pleasantly. " Give
me a bit of character," he would say. " It
is not to be bought by rank or wealth it
is the salt of life; it is idle to look for it
in real plays." Yet here, in this provincial
nook, he had lighted on a combination
that promised to be of absorbing interest.
Letters came to him of the usual pattern;
invitations from mammas; short notes,
like telegrams, from men, as " Dear Con.,
bring your boat round this way. We will
put you up for a week;" programmes of
new races; but he determined to linger on
and study these two fresh " bits of nature."
Even the place itself was amusing, its ways
and commotions entertained him; he liked
asking questions. He saw how the eyes of
the parishioners rested on those two girl-
figures, watching them with eagerness.
He picked up the whole history of the
great bazaar question, where the heiress
wished to have the entire direction according
to her whim, and decreed that only
genteel persons, of the rank of ladies, should
hold tables, a proposal firmly and excitedly
opposed by the clergyman's daughter.
She would not have the holy cause of
charity disfigured by such distinctions; it
must be thrown open to all the good
shopkeepers, to the race of Higgins's or Smiths,
whose honest contributions did not deserve
such a slight. But what was she against
the heiress, who, thus opposed, became,
like a passionate, froward child, that would
cry all night if its toy were refused? At the
price of a magnificent contribution, the
obsequious committee yielded to her. It was
wonderful with what scorn and anger
Jessica stigmatised this unholy defacing of
the cause of benevolence. But no one
was more scandalised or " put out" than
her father. This girl would be the death
of him. The transaction was welcome to
the people of the place, who did not range
themselves on different sides, but were
almost all against the parson's daughter,
including even those whose cause she had
taken up. In the shops, everywhere,
Conway heard little stray sketches of those
two important persons whose images filled