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Updated: May 31, 2025
Often the sea was quite unruffled at the beginning of the crossing, and was rough enough at the end to wreck the largest ship. Tell welcomed the storm. He had no wish to live if life meant years of imprisonment in a dark dungeon of Castle Kussnacht. Drowning would be a pleasant fate compared with that.
"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."
Tell made up his mind that Gessler should never make any one else suffer so much. There was only one thing to do. That was to kill Gessler, and that Tell meant to do. If Gessler escaped from the storm, Tell was sure that he would go straight to his castle at Küssnacht.
The fortress of Kussnacht was situated on the summit of Mount Rigi between Lake Lucerne, or the Lake of the Four Cantons as it is sometimes called, and Lake Zug. It was reached by crossing Lake Lucerne. The prisoner was placed bound in the bottom of a boat, and with his guards, the rowers, an inexperienced pilot, and Gessler in command, the boat was headed for Kussnacht.
He waited in the woods on the edge of a ravine through which Gessler must pass on the way to his castle at Kussnacht, for no other way led there; and when the Governor's escort finally appeared, Tell aimed his bow, the arrow hissed from the string and imbedded itself squarely in Gessler's heart.
The boat, rebounding, after he leaped from it was again driven out on the lake before any of the remainder of its occupants could effect a landing. After a time, however, the fury of the storm abated, and they reached the shore in safety. In the meantime Tell had concealed himself in a defile in the mountain through which Gessler would have to pass on his way to Kussnacht.
Life I promised you, and life I will give you. But of freedom I said nothing. In my castle at Kussnacht there are dungeons where no ray of sun or moon ever falls. Chained hand and foot in one of these, you will hardly aim your arrows at me. It is rash, Tell, to threaten those who have power over you. Soldiers, bind him and lead him to my ship.
They delighted in oppressing the people. They loaded them with taxes; nothing could be either bought or sold but the governors claimed a great part of the money; the slightest fault was punished with long imprisonment and heavy fines. The people became sad and downcast, but still they would not yield to Austria. Gessler lived in a great castle at Küssnacht in Schwyz.
He commanded the crew to row to Brunnen, where it was his intention to land, and, passing through the territory of Schwyz, to lodge the captive Tell in the dungeon of Kussnacht, and there to immure him for life.
His servant chanced to be so sick that he could not walk. Passing through Neufchâtel, Zellen Blatt, and Kussnacht, he reached the ruins of Halsburg. Here, in the midst of silence and solitude, the great-grandson of the brother of Louis XIV. sought a refuge from his countrymen, who were thirsting for his blood.
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