Page 148 - DENG401_Advance Communication Skills

Unit 7: Reading Skills

Notes
informant on this and many other points connected with the life and history of the valley.
Finally he kindly asked me into his house to have a cup of coffee.
When, in the course of our talk, I told him I had just come from the neighbouring valley of
Kandersteg, he grew quite excited and told me he had only recently unearthed among the
old church records a very interesting document relating to Kandersteg. It purported to be
the statement of a dying man as taken down by a priest of that time, in the year 1638.

The place had derived its name from an unwelcome swarm of mice which infested it. So
much was this the case that a haunch of beef which had been left in the tower one night was
found next morning to have been entirely consumed by the mice. This suggested to the
blood-thirsty tyrant the fiendish idea of hanging a victim in an extreme case in such a way
that, when spread-eagled, one foot should remain on the ground. He argued that the mice
would then attack the victim and gradually devour him from the foot upwards until death
released him from his sufferings.
Another painful form of execution devised by Count Rollo was that of hanging his victim
head downwards from a window in the tower until he died, and this punishment he had
meted out on May 14th, 1631, to Johann Kostler. Young Albert Kostler, driven to fury by
the death of his father, gathered together a number of young men of the valley, and they
planned together to rid the community of this monster.
Unfortunately for them their plot was discovered before it was ripe, and Albert was
waylaid by Rollo's myrmidons and carried off to the Mice Tower. It was after nightfall
when he was brought in and Count Rollo was at supper with his companions. He joyously
gave the word for the young man to be hanged forthwith head downwards from the
window. Quickly the victim's feet were tied together with the end of a rope, which ran up
over the end of a beam projecting out from the window, and he was slung out into the
darkness to die a lingering death, while Rollo and his friends kept up a noisy carousal
immediately above him.
For a few moments he hung like this while his executioners returned to their feast, and
then with a sudden plunge he fell heavily to the ground. The rope had been partially
gnawed through by the mice. Fortunately at that point the ground was covered by a thick
growth of heath. For a few moments he lay practically stunned, but he was not materially
hurt and, on coming to, he realised this, and having unfastened his bonds he made his way
cautiously in the darkness out of the camp and into the rocky cliffs close by.

By good fortune he came across a small cave, into which he crept. He found that it receded
a good way into the mountain-side, and he followed it up, crawling on his hands and
knees, until he felt himself secure from pursuit. Here he lay down to rest by a small runnel
of fresh water. Some time later--it may have been several hours--he was alarmed to hear
voices of men evidently searching for him. This caused him to explore even deeper into
the recesses of the mountain, till he found himself out of reach of any sounds. Haunted,
however, by the fear of re-capture, he continued to creep on and explore farther into the
tunnel-like cave, in the hope that he might find another exit.
How long he struggled on he never knew; in the total darkness it might have been hours,
it might and probably was days and nights. In the end, starving, weak and utterly worn
out, when he had given up all hope, and had resigned himself to dying in peace rather than
at the hands of torturers, he suddenly saw a faint gleam of light. Dragging himself onwards,
he eventually emerged into what he afterwards discovered was the Loetschen Valley.
Here he was found, and succoured by friendly hands, and he finally made it his home.

Contd...

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