"The council also gave its attention to the heresy of Wycliffe, whose doctrines it condemned, commanding that his books should be burned, and decreeing that his remains should be disinterred and burned. Huss was condemned to the stake; and his disciple, Jerome of Prague, having retracted his anti-Catholic doctrines, and then relapsed, shared his fate a year afterwards."
In the hall are the chairs occupied, at the sittings of the council, by the Emperor Sigismund and by the pope; a model of the dungeon in which Huss was confined, with the real door and other parts which had been preserved, and the car on which the reformer was drawn to the place of execution. The house in which he lodged is pointed out in one of the streets. The field wherein he suffered, with the spot where the stake stood, is shown to those who are curious enough to visit it.
The students examined the quaint old buildings in the town with much interest. In the middle of the afternoon, they embarked in the steamer for Friedrichshafen. The weather had been warm and oppressive, for the season, for the last two days; and there were strong indications of a change. A barometer at the hotel in Constance indicated an unusual depression. The students dreaded a storm of long continuance, they were so impatient to see the wonders which were yet in store for them; and the idea of being shut up in a small hotel, for two or three days, was not pleasant in the anticipation, whatever it might prove to be in reality.
By the time the steamer was half way to her destination, the wind began to come in fitful gusts, increasing in force, till the captain of the steamer wore a rather anxious expression on his face. The young salts laughed at the idea of a fresh-water tempest; and if anybody else was alarmed, they were not. The steamer began to tumble about; but nothing serious occurred, though some of the lady passengers were sea sick. Others, who had never seen a storm at sea, were frightened, and screamed every time the boat gave a heavy lurch.
"Do you think there is any danger, Commodore Kendall," asked Grace, thrilled by the cries of the females.
"I don't see how there can be. If this boat is good for anything, she ought to ride out one of these freshwater gales," replied Paul.
"It is going to be a fearful storm."
"I should think it would be, from the indications of the barometer."
"Do you see that boat, Paul?" said Shuffles, pointing to one of the Swiss small craft, which was laboring heavily in the billows.
"She is making bad weather of it," added Paul, as he examined the position of the storm-tossed craft.