Heroes Every Child Should Know Part 22

Poor Lalotte, meantime, having caught a glimpse of her uncle's tall, manly figure through the crowd, had pressed near enough to hear the alarming dialogue in which he had been engaged with the German soldiers. While, pale with terror, she stood listening with breathless attention, she recognised Philip at no great distance, with little Henric in his arms, among the spectators.

The thoughtless Philip was evidently neither aware how near he was to his uncle, nor of the peril in which he stood. With foolish glee, he was pointing out the cap to little Henric; and though Lalotte could not hear what he was saying, she fancied he was rashly boasting to the child of the share in the exploit of pelting it down a few nights previous.

While her attention was thus painfully excited she heard some of the people round her saying,

"Who is it that has ventured to resist the governor's decree?"

"It is William Tell, the crossbow-man of Burglen," replied many voices.

"William Tell!" said one of the soldiers; "why it was his kinsman who raised a rabble to insult the ducal bonnet the other night."

"Ay, it was the scapegrace, Philip Tell, who a.s.sailed the cap of our sovereign with stones, till he struck it down," cried another.

"Behold where the young villain stands," exclaimed a third, pointing to Philip.

"Hallo, hallo! seize the young traitor, in the name of the Emperor and the governor!" shouted the Germans.

"Run, Philip, run--run for your life!" cried a party of his youthful a.s.sociates.

Philip hastily set his little cousin on his feet, and started off with the speed of the wild chamois of the Alpine mountains; leaving little Henric to s.h.i.+ft for himself.

"The child, the child! the precious boy! he will be trampled to death!" shrieked Lalotte.

Henric had caught sight of his father among the crowd while Philip was holding him up to look at the ducal cap, and he had been much alarmed lest his father should see him. But the moment he found himself abandoned by Philip, he lifted up his voice, and screamed with all his might, "Father, father!"

The helplessness, the distress, together with the uncommon beauty of the child, moved the heart of a peasant near him, to compa.s.sion.

"Who is your father, my fair boy?" said he. "Point him out, and I will lead you to him."

"My father is William Tell, the crossbow-man of Burglen," said the child. "There he is close to the cap on the pole yonder."

"Is he your father, poor babe?" said the peasant. "Well, you will find him in rare trouble, and I hope you may not be the means of adding to it, my little man."

No sooner had the kind man cleared the way through the crowd for his young companion, and conducted him within a few yards of the spot where William Tell stood, than the urchin drew his hand away from his new friend, and running to his father, flung his little arms about his knees, sobbing, "Father, dear father, pray forgive me this once, and I will never disobey you again."

Henric made his appearance at an unlucky moment both for his father and himself; for the cruel governor of Uri, exasperated at the manly courage of Tell, seized the boy by the arm and sternly demanded if he were his son.

"Harm not the child, I pray thee," cried Tell: "he is my first born."

"It is not my intention to do him harm," replied the governor. "If any mischief befall the child, it will be by thy own hand, traitor.

Here," cried he to one of his soldiers, "take this boy, tie him beneath yon linden-tree, in the centre of the market-place, and place an apple on his head--"

"What means this?" cried Tell.

"I am minded to see a specimen of your skill as an archer," replied Gessler. "I am told that you are the best marksman in all Uri; and, therefore, your life being forfeited by your presumptuous act of disobedience, I am inclined, out of the clemency of my nature, to allow you a chance of saving it. This you may do, if you can shoot an arrow so truly aimed as to cleave the apple upon thy boy's head.

But if thou either miss the apple, or slay the child, then shall the sentence of death be instantly executed."

"Unfeeling tyrant!" exclaimed Tell; "dost thou think that I could endeavour to preserve my own life by risking that of my precious child?"

"Nay," replied Gessler, "I thought I was doing thee a great favour by offering thee an alternative, whereby thou mightest preserve thy forfeited life by a lucky chance."

"A lucky chance!" exclaimed Tell: "and dost thou believe that I would stake my child's life on such a desperate chance as the cast of an arrow launched by the agitated hand of an anxious father, at such a mark as that? Nay, look at the child thyself, my lord. Though he be no kin to thee, and thou knowest none of his pretty ways and winning wiles, whereby he endeareth himself to a parent's heart--yet consider his innocent countenance, the artless beauty of his features, and the rosy freshness of his rounded cheeks, which are dimpling with joy at the sight of me, though the tears yet hang upon them--and then say, whether thou couldst find in thine heart to aim an arrow that perchance might harm him?"

"I swear," replied Gessler, "that thou shalt either shoot the arrow, or die!"

"My choice is soon made," said Tell, dropping the bow from his hand.

"Let me die!"

"Ay, but the child shall be slain before thy face ere thine own sentence be executed, traitor!" cried the governor, "if thou shoot not at him."

"Give me the bow once more!" exclaimed Tell, in a hoa.r.s.e, deep voice; "but in mercy let some one turn the child's face away from me. If I meet the glance of those sweet eyes of his, it will unnerve my hand; and then, perchance, the shaft, on whose true aim his life and mine depend, may err."

Lalotte, knowing that all depended on his remaining quiet, as soon as the soldiers had placed him with his face averted from his father, sprang forward, and whispered in Henric's ear, "Stand firm, dear boy, without moving, for five minutes, and you will be forgiven for your fault of this morning."

There was a sudden pause of awe and expectation among the dense crowd that had gathered round the group planted within a bow-shot of the linden-tree beneath which the child was bound. Tell, whose arms were now released, unbuckled the quiver that was slung across his shoulder, and carefully examined his arrows, one by one. He selected two: one of them he placed in his girdle, the other he fitted to his bow-string; and then he raised his eyes to Heaven, and his lips moved in prayer. He relied not upon his own skill but he asked the a.s.sistance of One in whose hands are the issues of life and death; and he did not ask in vain. The trembling, agitated hand that a moment before shook with the strong emotion of a parent's anxious fears, became suddenly firm and steady; his swimming eyes resumed their keen, clear sight, and his mind recovered its wonted energy of purpose at the proper moment.

Lalotte's young voice was the first to proclaim, aloud, "The arrow hath cleft the apple in twain! and the child is safe."

"G.o.d hath sped my shaft, and blessed be His name!" exclaimed the pious archer, on whose ear the thunders of applause, with which the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude hailed his successful shot, had fallen unheeded.

The soldiers now unbound the child; and Lalotte fearlessly advanced, and led him to his father. But before the fond parent could fold his darling to his bosom, the tyrant Gessler sternly demanded for what purpose he had reserved the second arrow, which he had seen him select and place in his belt.

"That arrow," replied Tell, giving way to a sudden burst of pa.s.sion, "that arrow was designed to avenge the death of my child, if I had slain him with the other."

"How to avenge?" exclaimed the governor, furiously. "To avenge, saidst thou? and on whom didst thou intend thy vengeance would fall?"

"On thee, tyrant!" replied Tell, fixing his eyes sternly on the governor. "My next mark would have been thy bosom, had I failed in my first. Thou perceivest that mine is not a shaft to miscarry."

"Well, thou hast spoken frankly," said Gessler; "and since I have promised thee thy life I will not swerve from my word. But as I have now reason for personal apprehensions from thy malice, I shall closet thee henceforth so safely in the dungeons of Kussnacht, that the light of sun or moon shall never more visit thine eyes; and thy fatal bow shall hereafter be harmless."

On this the guard once more laid hands on the intrepid archer, whom they seized and bound, in spite of the entreaties of Lalotte, and the cries and tears of little Henric, who hung weeping about his father.

"Take him home to his mother, Lalotte; and bear my last fond greetings to her and the little ones, whom I, peradventure, shall see no more," said Tell, bursting into tears. The mighty heart which had remained firm and unshaken in the midst of all his perils and trials, now melted within him at the sight of his child's tears, the remembrance of his home, and antic.i.p.ations of the sufferings of his tender wife.

The inhuman Gessler scarcely permitted his prisoner the satisfaction of a parting embrace with Henric and Lalotte, ere he ordered him to be hurried on board a small vessel in which he embarked also with his armed followers. He commanded the crew to row to Brunnen, where it was his intention to land, and, pa.s.sing through the territory of Schwyz, to lodge the captive Tell in the dungeon of Kussnacht, and there to immure him for life.

The sails were hoisted and the vessel under weigh, when suddenly one of those storms common on the lake of Uri overtook them, accompanied with such violent gusts of wind, that the terrified pilot forsook the helm; and the bark, with the governor and his crew, was in danger of being ingulfed in the raging waters. Gessler, like most wicked people, was in great terror at the prospect of death, when one of his attendants reminded him that the prisoner, William Tell, was no less skilful in the management of a boat than in the exercise of the bow. So he ordered that Tell should be unbound, and placed at the helm.

The boat, steered by the master-hand of the intrepid Tell, now kept its course steadily through, the mountain surge; and Tell observed, "that by the grace of G.o.d, he trusted a deliverance was at hand."

As the prow of the vessel was driven inland, Tell perceived a solitary table rock and called aloud the rowers to redouble their efforts, till they should have pa.s.sed the precipice ahead. At the instant they came abreast this point he s.n.a.t.c.hed his bow from the plank, where it was lying forgotten during the storm, and, turning the helm suddenly toward the rock, he sprang lightly on sh.o.r.e, scaled the mountain, and was out of sight and beyond reach of pursuit, before any on board had recovered from consternation.

Tell, meantime, entered Schwyz, and having reached the heights which border the main road to Kussnacht, concealed himself among the brushwood in a small hollow of the road, where he knew Gessler would pa.s.s on his way to his own castle, in case he and his followers escaped and came safely to sh.o.r.e. This, it appeared they did, and having effected a landing at Brunnen, they took horse, and proceeded towards Kussnacht, in the direction. of the only road to the castle.

While they were pa.s.sing the spot where Tell lay concealed, he heard the cruel tyrant denouncing the most deadly vengeance, not only on himself, but his helpless family: "If I live to return to Altdorf,"

he exclaimed, "I will destroy the whole brood of the traitor Tell, mother and children, in the same hour."

"Monster, thou shalt return to Altdorf no more!" murmured Tell. So, raising himself up in his lair, and fitting an arrow to his bow, he took deadly aim at the relentless bosom that was planning the destruction of all his family.

The arrow flew as truly to the mark as that which he had shot in the market-place of Altdorf, and the tyrant Gessler fell from his horse, pierced with a mortal wound.