These Adamites committed the maddest excesses,
but found a stern enemy in Ziska, who put them down with an unsparing
hand.
In 1421 Sigismund again roused himself to activity, incensed by the
Hussite defiance of his authority. He incited the Silesians to invade
Bohemia, and an army of twenty thousand poured into the land, killing
all before them,--men, women, and children. Yet such was the terror that
the very name of Ziska now excited, that the mere rumor of his approach
sent these invaders flying across the borders.
But, in the midst of his career of triumph, an accident came to the
Bohemian leader which would have incapacitated any less resolute man
from military activity. During the siege of the castle of Raby a
splinter struck his one useful eye and completely deprived him of sight.
It did not deprive him of power and energy. Most men, under such
circumstances, would have retired from army leadership, but John Ziska
was not of that calibre. He knew Bohemia so thoroughly that the whole
land lay accurately mapped out in his mind. He continued to lead his
army, to marshal his men in battle array, to command them in the field
and the siege, despite his blindness, always riding in a carriage, close
to the great standard, and keeping in immediate touch with all the
movements of the war.
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