On 18 November 1307, Tell visited Altdorf with his young son and passed by the hat, publicly refusing to bow to it, and so was arrested. Gessler—intrigued by Tell's famed marksmanship yet resentful of his defiance—devised a cruel punishment: Tell and his son would be executed, but he could redeem his life by shooting an apple off the head of his son, Walter, in a single attempt. Tell split the apple with a bolt from his crossbow.
But Gessler noticed that Tell had removed two crossbow bolts from his quiver, not one. Before releasing him, he asked why. Tell was reluctant to reply, but after Gessler promised he would not attempt to kill him, he replied that if he had killed his son, he would have used the second bolt on Gessler himself. Gessler was angered and had Tell bound, saying that while he had promised to spare his life, he would imprison Tell for the remainder of the life he had been granted.
Tell was brought to Gessler's boat to be taken to the dungeon in his castle at Küssnacht. But, as a storm broke on Lake Lucerne, the soldiers were afraid that their boat would founder, and they begged Gessler to allow them to remove Tell's shackles so he could steer the boat and save them. Gessler agreed, and Tell used the opportunity to escape, leaping from the boat at the rocky site now (and already in the White Book) known as theTellsplatte ("Tell's slab"), since the 16th century the site of a memorial chapel.
The Hohle Gasse betweenImmensee and Küssnacht.
Tell ran cross-country to Küssnacht. As Gessler arrived, Tell assassinated him with the second crossbow bolt along a stretch of the road cut through the rock between Immensee and Küssnacht, now known as theHohle Gasse. Tell's blow for liberty sparked a rebellion in which he played a leading part, leading to the formation of the Swiss Confederation.