Suddenly the stillness was broken.  From the rugged cliffs which bordered the pass came a loud shout of defiance.  But more alarming still was the sound of descending rocks, which came plunging down the mountain side, and in an 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 assailants, it seemed as if the whole army would be annihilated, and not a man escape to tell the tale.

Numbers of gallant knights, the flower of the Austrian, nobility, fell under those vengeful clubs.  Numbers were drowned in the lake.  A halberd-thrust revenged Switzerland on Landenberg, who had come back to his doom.  Two of the Gesslers were slain.  Death held high carnival in that proud array which had vowed to reduce the free-spirited mountaineers to servitude.