weakening, came forward, saying, "Dear sir and master, if
you will recant your unbelief and heresy, for which you must
suffer, I will willingly hear your confession; but if you
will not, you know right well that, according to canon law,
no one can administer the sacrament to a heretic." To this
Huss answered, "It is not necessary: I am not a mortal
sinner." His paper crown fell off and he smiled as his
guards replaced it. He desired to take leave of his keepers,
and when they were brought to him he thanked them for their
kindness, saying that they had been to him rather brothers
than jailers. Then he commenced to address the crowd in
German, telling them that he suffered for errors which he
did not hold, and he was cut short. When bound to the stake,
two cartloads of fagots and straw were piled up around him,
and the palsgrave and vogt for the last time adjured him to
abjure. Even yet he could save himself, but only repeated
that he had been convicted by false witnesses on errors
never entertained by him. They clapped their hands and then
withdrew, and the executioners applied the fire. Twice Huss
was heard to exclaim, "Christ Jesus, Son of the living God,
have mercy upon me!" then a wind springing up and blowing
the flames and smoke into his face checked further
utterances, but his head was seen to shake and his lips to
move while one might twice or thrice recite a paternoster.
The tragedy was over; the sorely-tried soul had escaped from
its tormentors, and the bitterest enemies of the reformer
could not refuse to him the praise that no philosopher of
old had faced death with more composure than he had shown in
his dreadful extremity. No faltering of the voice had
betrayed an internal struggle. Palsgrave Louis, seeing