"Well, your Excellency, there are too many of them."

   "Too many!"

   "Yes. And we are not going to put up with it any longer!" shouted

   Arnold of Melchthal.

   Gessler leaned forward in his throne.

   "Might I ask you to repeat that remark?" he said.

   "We are not going to put up with it any longer!"

   Gessler sat back again with an ugly smile.

   "Oh," he said—"oh, indeed! You aren't, aren't you! Desire the Lord
High Executioner to step this way," he added to a soldier who stood
beside him.

   The Lord High Executioner entered the presence. He was a kind-looking
old gentleman with white hair, and he wore a beautiful black robe,
tastefully decorated with death's-heads.

   "Your Excellency sent for me?" he said.

   "Just so," replied Gessler. "This gentleman here"—he pointed to Arnold
of Melchthal—"says he does not like taxes, and that he isn't going to
put up with them any longer."

   "Tut-tut!" murmured the executioner.

   "See what you can do for him."

   "Certainly, your Excellency. Robert," he cried, "is the oil on the
boil?"

   "Just this minute boiled over," replied a voice from the other side of
the door.

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