Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/174



Drda, being left to his own discretion, slowly journeyed to Prague. He had not seen the city since the summer of 1278; and although it had grown depressed in enterprise since 1276, yet its aspect presented a scene of gayety then compared with the somber melancholy of the present. The crowd of merchants, especially from Hungary and the Adriatic, had disappeared. Not a single foreign costume presented itself. Inertness, silence everywhere. During two years not a bell had been tolled in the sorrowing city. Eberhard, bishop of Brandenburg, held control as the representative of Otto. The state treasures had disappeared; even the archives had fallen a prey to the ravage of the spoiler.

Not despair but sulleness, not discouragement but reserve marked the look and tone of the people. Through the country desolation extended, except where a strong castle, a walled town, or a hasty rampart of earth protected a cultivated area. A remnant of the estates sat during the summer to concert measures for the expulsion of German and Cumanian bands of freebooters and robbers, and the recovery of some of the royal property both in lands and _ personalty that had been seized by daring aggressors. Armed by