instant fell with a sickening thud on the mail-clad and
crowded ranks below. Under their weight the iron helmets of the knights
cracked like so many nut-shells; heads were crushed into shapeless
masses, and dozens of men, a moment before full of life, hope, and
ambition, were hurled in death to the ground.

Down still plunged the rocks, loosened by busy hands above, sent on
their errand of death down the steep declivities, hurling destruction
upon the dense masses below. Escape was impossible. The pass was filled
with horsemen. It would take time to open an avenue of flight, and still
those death-dealing rocks came down, smashing the strongest armor like
pasteboard, strewing the pass with dead and bleeding bodies.

And now the horses, terrified, wounded, mad with pain and alarm, began
to plunge and rear, trebling the confusion and terror, crushing fallen
riders under their hoofs, adding their quota to the sum of death and
dismay. Many of them rushed wildly into the lake which bordered one side
of the pass, carrying their riders to a watery death. In a few minutes'
time that trim and soldierly array, filled with hope of easy victory and
disdain of its foes, was converted into a mob of maddened horses and
frightened men, while the rocky pass beneath their feet was strewn
thickly with the dying and the dead.

Yet all this had been done by fifty men, fifty banished patriots, who
had hastened back on learning that their country was in danger, and
stationing themselves among the cliffs above the pass, had loosened and
sent rolling downwards the stones and huge fragments of rock which lay
plentifully there.

While the fifty returned exiles were thus at work on the height of
Morgarten, the army of the Swiss, thirteen hundred in number, was posted
on the summit of the Sattel Mountain opposite, waiting its opportunity.
The time for action had come. The Austrian cavalry of the vanguard was
in a state of frightful confusion and dismay. And now the mountaineers
descended the steep hill slopes like an avalanche, and precipitated
themselves on the flank of the invading force, dealing death with their
halberds and iron-pointed clubs until the pass ran blood.

On every side the Austrian chivalry fell. Escape was next to impossible,
resistance next to useless. Confined in that narrow passage, confused,
terrified, their ranks broken by the rearing and plunging horses,
knights and men-at-arms falling with every blow from their vigorous