On they went,
the angry governor swearing vengeance against Tell, and laying plans
with his followers how the runaway should be seized. The deepest dungeon
at Kuessnach, he vowed, should be his lot.
He little dreamed what ears heard his fulminations and what deadly peril
threatened him. On leaving the boat, Tell had run quickly forward to the
passage, or hollow way, through which he knew that Gessler must pass on
his way to the castle. Here, hidden behind the high bank that bordered
the road, he waited, cross-bow in hand, and the arrow which he had
designed for the governor's life in the string, for the coming of his
mortal foe.
Gessler came, still talking of his plans to seize Tell, and without a
dream of danger, for the pass was silent and seemed deserted. But
suddenly to his ears came the twang of the bow he had heard before that
day; through the air once more winged its way a steel-barbed shaft, the
heart of a tyrant, not an apple on a child's head, now its mark. In an
instant more Gessler fell from his horse, pierced by Tell's fatal shaft,
and breathed his last before the eyes of his terrified servants.
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