But the fear of foreign invasion was once more to drive into the background for a time the internal divisions of the Utraquist party. The fiery energy of Martin V. had roused the electors of the Empire from the panic into which they had been thrown by the failure of the first crusade; and the Margrave of Meissen, the fiercest of the enemies of Bohemia, had begun a new invasion on his own responsibility. Z̆iz̆ka had been recently wounded in his only sound eye; but, at the rumour of the new attack, he at once hurried out to battle, and the men of Meissen fled before him. The rumours of the divisions between the nobles and the citizens had, however, encouraged the Meissener to renew their attack; and a few successes on their part induced Frederick of Hohenzollern to organise a second crusade among the princes of the Empire. The Bohemian peasants fled before the advance of the new army and took refuge in the town of Z̆atec. So in September, 1421, an army of two thousand Imperialists marched against Z̆atec, and the terrified citizens began to despair of resistance. But their anxieties and dangers came to an unexpected end. As the watchers were gazing one day from the city walls on the camp of the enemy, their attention was caught by a sudden glow of fire. The flame rapidly spread through the camp, and all the tents of the enemy were consumed. To the astonished eyes of the watchers it seemed as if a miracle had been worked on their behalf; but the real explanation, though wonderful enough, was not connected with those interferences with the order of nature to which conventional phraseology has confined the name of miracle. The fact was that the Electors of the German Empire had heard that the terrible Z̆iz̆ka was approaching; and so the great army of the second crusade had burnt their tents and retreated without striking a blow. [Illustration: Z̆IZ̆KA ON HORSEBACK AT THE HEAD OF THE FLAIL-BEARING TABORITES. (_From an old picture copied in Dr. Toman’s pamphlet._)] Sigismund had been absent in Hungary during this struggle, but he now advanced at the head of a Hungarian army to Brünn (Brno), committing every kind of barbarity on the way. It will be remembered that he had recently announced that he had never objected to a discussion of the Four Articles. He now summoned all the Moravian nobles before him, and threatened to put them to death unless they would abjure all those Articles. Apparently the nobles were not made of the same stuff as the sturdy preachers of Tabor and Prague; for, with two exceptions, all the Utraquist nobles of Moravia consented to abandon their creed and accept that of Sigismund.