Page:William Tell Told Again.djvu/146

82 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.”

While he was speaking, Tell had been standing in silence, his hands trembling and his eyes ﬁxed, sometimes on the Governor, sometimes on the sky. He now seized his quiver, and taking from it a second arrow, placed it in his belt. Gessler watched him, but said nothing.

“Shoot, father!” cried Walter from the other end of the lane; “I'm not afraid.”