the heart of the crowd.

[Illustration: PLATE XI]

"Here! Hi! That's the wrong way! More to the left!" shouted the people
in a panic, while Gessler roared with laughter, and bade Tell shoot and
chance it.

"If you can't hit the apple or your son," he chuckled, "you can bring
down one of your dear fellow-countrymen."

Tell lowered his bow, and a sigh of relief went through the crowd.

"My eyes are swimming," he said; "I cannot see."

Then he turned to the Governor.

"I cannot shoot," he said; "bid your soldiers kill me."

"No," said Gessler--"no, Tell. That is not at all what I want. If I had
wished my soldiers to kill you, I should not have waited for a formal
invitation from you. I have no desire to see you slain. Not at present.
I wish to see you shoot. Come, Tell, they say you can do everything,
and are afraid of nothing. Only the other day, I hear, you carried a
man, one Baumgartner--that was his name, I think--across a rough sea in
an open boat. You may remember it? I particularly wished to catch
Baumgartner, Tell. Now, this is a feat which calls for much less
courage. Simply to shoot an apple off a boy's head. A child could do
it."