“Maybe you do! But everybody here has had a shot at Barbarossa’s ring, although nobody has won it yet!” answered Rudi.
“What is that about Barbarossa’s ring?” asked a stranger who had never been in Göschenen.
“That’s Barbarossa’s ring, over there,” said Rudi.
He pointed to the side of the mountain, where a large copper ring hung on a hook, and went on:
“This is the road by which King Frederick Barbarossa used to travel to Italy; he travelled over it six times, and was crowned both in Milan and in Rome. And as this made him German-Roman emperor, he caused this ring to be hung up on the mountain, in remembrance of his having wedded Germany to Italy. And if this ring, so goes the saying, can be lifted off its hook, then the marriage, which was not a happy one, will be annulled.”
“Then I will annul it,” said Andrea. “I will break the bonds as my fathers broke the bonds which bound my poor country to the tyrants of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden.”
“Are you not a Swiss, yourself?” asked the magistrate severely.
“No, I am an Italian of the Swiss Confederation.”
He slipped an iron bullet into his gun, took aim and shot.
The ring was lifted from below and jerked off the hook. Barbarossa’s ring lay at their feet.