Through the intercession of friends she was sent to Moscow, and there, after further imprisonment, was set at liberty. She had witnessed enough of the Bolshevist horrors to be even a more bitter enemy of their regime than she had been before. She determined to fly from Russia and gain aid from the Allies to carry on a war against them and the Germans alike, and with this end in view was secretly carried aboard the American steamer Sheridan and brought to the United States. Here, for the time being, her career ends. It will remain for the future to show if she takes further part in the affairs of her country for which she so bravely fought, bled and suffered,—but whether circumstances allow her to do so or not, she has carved her name in lasting letters on the tablets of modern history.
HEROES OF FICTION
CHAPTER XXXII
WILLIAM TELL
Many hundreds of years ago, at the end of the Thirteenth Century to be exact, in the country that is now Switzerland, there lived a Swiss hunter and herdsman named William Tell. He lived in the little town of Burglen among the mountains, and with him lived his wife and his two sons, who, when this story opens, were about ten and twelve years old. William Tell was so strong that his name was known far and wide; he was so skilful a hunter that nothing seemed ever to escape his keen arrow when once it was on the wing; he was so venturesome a mountain climber that the steepest precipice was not too dangerous for him; and with all these great abilities he had a kindly disposition and was liked as well as admired by his neighbors.
William Tell had won more than one prize at the fairs and competitions that were sometimes held near his town; on one occasion he had shot a small bird on the wing with his sure arrow, for the bullseye of the target had seemed too large for him. And so it came to pass that when his neighbors revolted from the foreign yoke that Austria had thrown over Switzerland Tell was one of the first to be called on by the patriots who desired to free their country.
Switzerland was not a single country in those days, but was divided into the three cantons or districts of Schwyz (from which it takes its present name) Uri and Unterwalden. The Austrians had nominally governed the country for a long time without any dissent on the part of the Swiss people, for the Austrian ruler, named Adolph, had treated them extremely well and allowed them to keep their ancestral rights and customs.
Then, however, the Hapsburg Emperor, Albrecht, came to the throne; and discontent and misery were soon apparent in the Swiss cantons. For the new monarch did not follow the policy of the former king, but sent cruel governors to rule over the honest Swiss, with secret orders to oppress them in many ways until their love of liberty, for which they had always been famous, might be destroyed.
All the time that these changes were taking place, William Tell went quietly about his affairs. He looked after his herds and hunted in the mountains, while his wife, Hedwig, saw to his house and brought up his two boys, William and Walter. He had everything to make him happy—a clean and well ordered home on the side of the mountain, a devoted wife, two manly boys, and a herd of cattle that included the most beautiful cow for miles around. This cow was named Hifeli, and wore a sweet toned bell about her neck.