he two peasants have kindled a fire
in the centre of the stage.

MELCHTHAL (on the shore).
Who's there? The word?

STAUFFACHER (from below).
Friends of the country.

[All retire up the stage, towards the party landing from the boat.
Enter STAUFFACHER, ITEL, REDING, HANS AUF DER MAUER, JORG IM HOPE,
CONRAD HUNN, ULRICH DER SCHMIDT, JOST VON WEILER, and three other
peasants, armed.

ALL.
Welcome!

[While the rest remain behind exchanging greetings, MELCHTHAL comes
forward with STAUFFACHER.

MELCHTHAL.
Oh, worthy Stauffacher, I've looked but now
On him, who could not look on me again.
I've laid my hands upon his rayless eyes,
And on their vacant orbits sworn a vow
Of vengeance, only to be cooled in blood.

STAUFFACHER.
Speak not of vengeance. We are here to meet
The threatened evil, not to avenge the past.
Now tell me what you've done, and what secured,
To aid the common cause in Unterwald.
How stands the peasantry disposed, and how
Yourself escaped the wiles of treachery?

MELCHTHAL.
Through the Surenen's fearful mountain chain,
Where dreary ice-fields stretch on every side,
And sound is none, save the hoarse vulture's cry,
I reached the Alpine pasture, where the herds
From Uri and from Engelberg resort,
And turn their cattle forth to graze in common.
Still as I went along, I slaked my thirst
With the coarse oozings of the lofty glacier,
That through the crevices come foaming down,
And turned to rest me in the herdsman's cots, [15]
Where I was host and guest, until I gained
The cheerful homes and social haunts of men.
Already through these distant vales had spread
The rumor of this last atrocity;
And wheresoe'er I went, at every door,
Kind words and gentle looks were there to greet me.
I found these simple spirits all in arms
Against our rulers' tyrannous encroachments.
For as their Alps through each succeeding year
Yield the same roots,--their streams flow ever on
In the same channels,--nay, the clouds and winds
The selfsame course unalterably pursue,
So have old customs there, from sire to son,
Been handed down, unchanging and unchanged;
Nor will they brook to swerve or turn aside
From the fixed, even tenor of their life.
With grasp of their hard hands they welcomed me--
Took from the walls their rusty falchions down--
And from their eyes the soul of valor flashed
With joyful lustre, as I spoke those names,
Sacred to every peasant i