STAUFFACHER.
Much might be done--did we stand fast together.

TELL.
When the ship founders, he will best escape
Who seeks no other's safety but his own.

STAUFFACHER.
And you desert the common cause so coldly?

TELL.
A man can safely count but on himself!

STAUFFACHER.
Nay, even the weak grow strong by union.

TELL.
But the strong man is the strongest when alone.

STAUFFACHER.
Your country, then, cannot rely on you
If in despair she rise against her foes.

TELL.
Tell rescues the lost sheep from yawning gulfs:
Is he a man, then, to desert his friends?
Yet, whatsoe'er you do, spare me from council!
I was not born to ponder and select;
But when your course of action is resolved,
Then call on Tell; you shall not find him fail.

[Exeunt severally. A sudden tumult is heard around the scaffolding.

MASTER MASON (running in).
What's wrong?

FIRST WORKMAN (running forward).
The slater's fallen from the roof.

BERTHA (rushing in).
Is he dashed to pieces? Run--save him, help!
If help be possible, save him! Here is gold.

[Throws her trinkets among the people.

MASTER MASON.
Hence with your gold,--your universal charm,
And remedy for ill! When you have torn
Fathers from children, husbands from their wives,
And scattered woe and wail throughout the land,
You think with gold to compensate for all.
Hence! Till we saw you we were happy men;
With you came misery and dark despair.

BERTHA (to the TASKMASTER, who has returned).
Lives he?
[TASKMASTER shakes his head.
Ill-fated towers, with curses built,
And doomed with curses to be tenanted!

[Exit.

SCENE IV.

The House of WALTER FURST.
WALTER FURST and ARNOLD
VON MELCHTHAL enter simultaneously at different sides.

MELCHTHAL.
Good Walter Furst.

FURST.
If we should be surprised!
Stay where you are. We are beset with spies.

MELCHTHAL.
Have you no news for me from Unterwald?
What of my father? 'Tis not to be borne,
Thus to be pent up like a felon here!
What have I done of such a heinous stamp,
To skulk and hide me like a murderer?
I only laid my staff across the fingers
Of the pert varlet, when before my eyes,
By order of the governor, he tried
To drive away my handsome team of oxen.

FURST.
You are too rash by far. He did no more
Than what the governor had ordered him.
You had transgressed, and therefore should have paid
The penalty, however hard, in silence.

MELCHTHAL