ach. They are the
assassins. One of them, {41} Count de Horn, lays a hand on his
shoulder: "Good day, fine masker!" he says. This Judas salute, this
ironical welcome given by the murderers to their victim, is the signal
for the attack. On the instant, Ankarstroem fires on the King with a
pistol loaded with old iron.

Gustavus, struck in the left hip, cries, "I am wounded!" The pistol,
which had been wrapped in wool, made only a muffled report, and the
smoke spreading throughout the room, the crowd does not think of a
murder, but a fire. Cries of "Fire! fire!" augment the confusion.
Baron d'Essen, all covered with his master's blood, helps him to gain a
little box called the OEil-de-Boeuf, and from there a salon, where he
is laid upon a sofa. Baron d'Armfelt orders the doors of the theatre
to be closed, and every one to unmask. A man, brazening it out, lifts
his mask before the officer of police, and says to him with assurance,
"As for me, sir, I hope that you will not suspect me." It is
Ankarstroem, the assassin. He goes out quietly. But, after the crime
was committed, his weapons, a pistol and a knife like that of
Ravaillac, had fallen on the floor. A gunsmith of Stockholm will
recognize the pistol and declare that he had sold it a few days before
to a former officer of the guards, Captain Ankarstroem. It is the
token which will cause the arrest of the assassin, and his punishment
by the penalty of parricides,--decapitation and the cutting off of his
right hand.

{42}

The King showed admirable calm and resignation during the thirteen days
he had still to live. He asked with anxiety if the murderer had been
arrested, and being answered that his name was not yet known: "Ah! God
grant," said he, "that he may not be discovered!" As soon as the first
bandages were put on, the wounded man was taken to his apartments at
the castle. There he received his courtiers and the foreign ministers.
When he saw the Duke d'Escars, who represented the brothers of Louis
XVI. at Stockholm: "This is a blow," said he, "which is going to
rejoice your Parisian Jacobins; but write to the Princes that if I
recover from it, it will change neither my sentiments nor my zeal for
their just cause." In the midst of his sufferings he preserved a
dignity above all praise. Neither recriminations nor murmurs issued
from his lips. He summoned to his death-bed both his friends and those
who had been among the number of his enemies,