As Gessler sat watching them, he looked round at all the angry faces of the crowd. "Tell has too many friends here," he said to himself. "If I imprison him in the Curb of Uri, they may find some way to help him to escape. I will take him with me in my boat to Klissnacht. There he can have no friends. There he will be quite safe." Then aloud he said, "Follow me, my men. Bring him to the boat."
As he said these words, there was a loud murmur from the crowd. "That is against the law," cried many voices.
"Law, law?" growled Gessler. "Who makes the law, you or I?"
Walter Fürst had been standing among the crowd silent and anxious. Now he stepped forward and spoke boldly. "My lord," he said, "it has ever been a law among the Swiss that no one shall be imprisoned out of his own canton. If my son-in-law, William Tell, has done wrong, let him be tried and imprisoned here, in Uri, in Altorf. If you do otherwise you wrong our ancient freedom and rights."
"Your freedom! your rights!" said Gessler roughly. "I tell you, you are here to obey the laws, not to teach me how I shall rule." Then turning his horse and calling out, "On, men, to the boat with him," he rode towards the lake, where, at a little place called Fliielen, his boat was waiting for him.
But Walter clung to his father, crying bitterly. Tell could not take him in his arms to comfort him, for his hands were tied. But he bent over him to kiss him, saying, "Little Walter, little Walter, be brave. Go with thy grandfather and comfort thy mother."
So Tell was led to Gessler's boat, followed by the sorrowing people. Their hearts were full of hot anger against the tyrant. Yet what could they do? He was too strong for them.
Tell was roughly pushed into the boat, where he sat closely guarded on either side by soldiers. His bow and arrows, which had been taken from him, were thrown upon a bench beside the steersman.
Gessler took his seat. The boat started, and was soon out on the blue water of the lake. As the people of Altorf watched Tell go, their hearts sank. They had not known, until they saw him bound and a prisoner, how much they had trusted and loved him.