Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/204

 himself administered it, though I was in the town. I commend you to the gracious Lord God, to the Lord Jesus, very God, the son of the chaste Virgin Mary, Who by His cruel and shameful death redeemed us without any merits of our own from everlasting tortures, from the devil's power and from sin. I write this at Constance, on the feast day of St. Othmar, a strenuous servant of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is blessed for ever. Amen.

The rumour to which John Cardinalis alludes, that Hus intended to preach—which, after the manner of rumours, grew into a report that he had actually preached—was not the only rumour afloat. Another tale, more damaging still, obtained wide circulation. A hay waggon with a large cover had been noticed in his street. In this, it was said, Hus had attempted to escape; he was actually in the cart when his friends Chlum and Lacembok, who were not in the secret, ran and informed the burgomaster and charged Hus with having broken his safe-conduct. The report was undoubtedly false, for Hus, as we know on the evidence of Chlum himself (Doc. 292), never left the house until his arrest. Nevertheless, it was widely believed, among others by the gossiping burgher, Ulrich von Reichental, from whose pages it has found its way into history. At any rate it furnished the managers of the Council, ill satisfied with the Pope’s vacillation in his negotiations with the heretic, with an excuse for bringing Hus under the grip of the Inquisition. The