—The Assassination Of Gustavus III Of Sweden
By Rafael Sabatini
Baron Bjelke sprang from his carriage almost before it had come to a standstill and without waiting for the footman to let down the steps. With a haste entirely foreign to a person of his station and importance, he swept into the great vestibule of the palace, and in a quivering voice flung a question at the first lackey he encountered:
“Has His Majesty started yet?”
“Not yet, my lord.”
The answer lessened his haste, but not his agitation. He cast off the heavy wolfskin pelisse in which he had been wrapped, and, leaving it in the hands of the servant, went briskly up the grand staircase, a tall, youthful figure, very graceful in the suit of black he wore.
As he passed through a succession of ante-rooms on his way to the private apartments of the King, those present observed the pallor of his clean-cut face under the auburn tie-wig he affected, and the feverish glow of eyes that took account of no one. They could not guess that Baron Bjelke, the King’s secretary and favourite, carried in his hands the life of his royal master, or its equivalent in the shape of the secret of the plot to assassinate him.
In many ways Bjelke was no better than the other profligate minions of the profligate Gustavus of Sweden. But he had this advantage over them, that his intellect was above their average. He had detected the first signs of the approach of that storm which the King himself had so heedlessly provoked. He knew, as much by reason as by intuition, that, in these days when the neighbouring State of France writhed in the throes of a terrific revolution against monarchic and aristocratic tyranny, it was not safe for a king to persist in the abuse of his parasitic power. New ideas of socialism were in the air. They were spreading through Europe, and it was not only in France that men accounted it an infamous anachronism that the great mass of a community should toil and sweat and suffer for the benefit of an insolent minority.
Already had there been trouble with the peasantry in Sweden, and Bjelke had endangered his position as a royal favourite by presuming to warn his master. Gustavus III desired amusement, not wisdom, from those about him. He could not be brought to realize the responsibilities which kingship imposes upon a man. It has been pretended that he was endowed with great gifts of mind. He may have been, though the thing has been pretended of so many princes that one may be sceptical where evidence is lacking. If he possessed those gifts, he succeeded wonderfully in concealing them under a nature that was frivolously gay, dissolute, and extravagant.
His extravagance forced him into monstrous extortions when only a madman would have wasted in profligacy the wealth so cruelly wrung from long-suffering subjects. From extortion he was driven by his desperate need of money into flagrant dishonesty. At a stroke of the pen he had reduced the value of the paper currency by one-third—a reduction so violent and sudden that, whilst it impoverished many, it involved some in absolute ruin—and this that he might gratify his appetite for magnificence and enrich the rapacious favourites who shared his profligacy.
The unrest in the kingdom spread. It was no longer a question of the resentment of a more or less docile peasantry whose first stirrings of revolt were easily quelled. The lesser nobility of Sweden were angered by a measure—following upon so many others—that bore peculiarly heavily upon themselves; and out of that anger, fanned by one man—John Jacob Ankarstrom—who had felt the vindictive spirit of royal injustice, flamed in secret the conspiracy against the King’s life which Bjelke had discovered.
He had discovered it by the perilous course of joining the conspirators. He had won their confidence, and they recognized that his collaboration was rendered invaluable by the position he held so near the King. And in his subtle wisdom, at considerable danger to himself, Bjelke had kept his counsel. He had waited until now, until the moment when the blow was about to fall, before making the disclosure which should not only save Gustavus, but enable him to cast a net in which all the plotters must be caught. And he hoped that when Gustavus perceived the narrowness of his escape, and the reality of the dangers amid which he walked, he would consider the wisdom of taking another course in future.
He had reached the door of the last ante-chamber, when a detaining hand was laid upon his arm. He found himself accosted by a page—the offspring of one of the noblest families in Sweden, and the son of one of Bjelke’s closest friends, a fair-haired, impudent boy to whom the secretary permitted a certain familiarity.
“Are you on your way to the King, Baron?” the lad inquired.
“I am, Carl. What is it?”
“A letter for His Majesty—a note fragrant as a midsummer rose—which a servant has just delivered to me. Will you take it?”
“Give it to me, impudence,” said Bjelke, the ghost of a smile lighting for a moment his white face.
He took the letter and passed on into the last antechamber, which was empty of all but a single chamberlain-in-waiting. This chamberlain bowed respectfully to the Baron.
“His Majesty?” said Bjelke.
“He is dressing. Shall I announce Your Excellency?”
“Pray do.”
The chamberlain vanished, and Bjelke was left alone. Waiting, he stood there, idly fingering the scented note he had received from the page. As he turned it in his fingers the superscription came uppermost, and he turned it no more. His eyes lost their absorbed look, their glance quickened into attention, a frown shaped itself between them like a scar; his breathing, suspended a moment, was renewed with a gasp. He stepped aside to a table bearing a score of candles clustered in a massive silver branch, and held the note so that the light fell full upon the writing.
Standing thus, he passed a hand over his eyes and stared again, two hectic spots burning now in his white cheeks. Abruptly, disregarding the superscription, his trembling fingers snapped the blank seal and unfolded the letter addressed to his royal master. He was still reading when the chamberlain returned to announce that the King was pleased to see the Baron at once. He did not seem to hear the announcement. His attention was all upon the letter, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a grin, and beads of perspiration glistening upon his brow.
“His Majesty—” the chamberlain was beginning to repeat, when he broke off suddenly. “Your Excellency is ill?”
“Ill?”
Bjelke stared at him with glassy eyes. He crumpled the letter in his hand and stuffed one and the other into the pocket of his black satin coat. He attempted to laugh to reassure the startled chamberlain, and achieved a ghastly grimace.
“I must not keep His Majesty waiting,” he said thickly, and stumbled on, leaving in the chamberlain’s mind a suspicion that His Majesty’s secretary was not quite sober.
But Bjelke so far conquered his emotion that he was almost his usual imperturbable self when he reached the royal dressing-room; indeed, he no longer displayed even the agitation that had possessed him when first he entered the palace.
Gustavus, a slight, handsome man of a good height, was standing before a cheval-glass when Bjelke came in. Francois, the priceless valet His Majesty had brought back from his last pleasure-seeking visit to pre-revolutionary Paris some five years ago, was standing back judicially to consider the domino he had just placed upon the royal shoulders. Baron Armfelt whom the conspirators accused of wielding the most sinister of all the sinister influences that perverted the King’s mind—dressed from head to foot in shimmering white satin, lounged on a divan with all the easy familiarity permitted to this most intimate of courtiers, the associate of all royal follies.
Gustavus looked over his shoulder as he entered.
“Why, Bjelke,” he exclaimed, “I thought you had gone into the country!”
“I am at a loss,” replied Bjelke, “to imagine what should have given Your Majesty so mistaken an impression.” And he might have smiled inwardly to observe how his words seemed to put Gustavus out of countenance.
The King laughed, nevertheless, with an affectation of ease.
“I inferred it from your absence from Court on such a night. What has been keeping you?” But, without waiting for an answer, he fired another question. “What do you say to my domino, Bjelke?”
It was a garment embroidered upon a black satin ground with tongues of flame so cunningly wrought in mingling threads of scarlet and gold that as he turned about now they flashed in the candlelight, and seemed to leap like tongues of living fire.
“Your Majesty will have a great success,” said Bjelke, and to himself relished the full grimness of his joke. For a terrible joke it was, seeing that he no longer intended to discharge the errand which had brought him in such haste to the palace.
“Faith, I deserve it!” was the flippant answer, and he turned again to the mirror to adjust a patch on the left side of his chin. “There is genius in this domino, and it is not the genius of Francois, for the scheme of flames is my very own, the fruit of a deal of thought and study.”
There Gustavus uttered his whole character. As a master of the revels, or an opera impresario, this royal rake would have been a complete success in life. The pity of it was that the accident of birth should have robed him in the royal purple. Like many another prince who has come to a violent end, he was born to the wrong metier.
“I derived the notion,” he continued, “from a sanbenito in a Goya picture.”
“An ominous garb,” said Bjelke, smiling curiously. “The garment of the sinner on his way to penitential doom.”
Armfelt cried out in a protest of mock horror, but Gustavus laughed cynically.
“Oh, I confess that it would be most apt. I had not thought of it.”
His fingers sought a pomatum box, and in doing so displaced a toilet-case of red morocco. An oblong paper package fell from the top of this and arrested the King’s attention.
“Why, what is this?” He took it up—a letter bearing the superscription:
To His MAJESTY THE KING
SECRET AND IMPORTANT
“What is this, Francois?” The royal voice was suddenly sharp.
The valet glided forward, whilst Armfelt rose from the divan and, like Bjelke, attracted by the sudden change in the King’s tone and manner, drew near his master.
“How comes this letter here?”
The valet’s face expressed complete amazement. It must have been placed there in his absence an hour ago, after he had made all preparations for the royal toilette. It was certainly not there at the time, or he must have seen it.
With impatient fingers Gustavus snapped the seal and unfolded the letter. Awhile he stood reading, very still, his brows knit.
Then, with a contemptuous “Poof!” he handed it to his secretary.
At a glance Bjelke recognized the hand for that of Colonel Lillehorn, one of the conspirators, whose courage had evidently failed him in the eleventh hour. He read:
SIRE,—Deign to heed the warning of one who, not being in your service, nor solicitous of your favours, flatters not your crimes, and yet desires to avert the danger threatening you. There is a plot to assassinate you which would by now have been executed but for the countermanding of the ball at the opera last week. What was not done then will certainly be done to-night if you afford the opportunity. Remain at home and avoid balls and public gatherings for the rest of the year; thus the fanaticism which aims at your life will evaporate.
“Do you know the writing?” Gustavus asked.
Bjelke shrugged. “The hand will be disguised, no doubt,” he evaded.
“But you will heed the warning, Sire?” exclaimed, Armfelt, who had read over the secretary’s shoulder, and whose face had paled in reading.
Gustavus laughed contemptuously. “Faith, if I were to heed every scaremonger, I should get but little amusement out of life.”
Yet he was angry, as his shifting colour showed. The disrespectful tone of the anonymous communication moved him more deeply than its actual message. He toyed a moment with a hair-ribbon, his nether lip thrust out in thought. At last he rapped out an oath of vexation, and proffered the ribbon to his valet.
“My hair, Francois,” said he, “and then we will be going.”
“Going!”
It was an ejaculation of horror from Armfelt, whose face was now as white as the ivory-coloured suit he wore.
“What else? Am I to be intimidated out of my pleasures?” Yet that his heart was less stout than his words his very next question showed. “Apropos, Bjelke, what was the reason why you countermanded the ball last week?”
“The councillors from Gefle claimed Your Majesty’s immediate attention,” Bjelke reminded him.
“So you said at the time. But the business seemed none so urgent when we came to it. There was no other reason in your mind—no suspicion?”
His keen, dark blue eyes were fixed upon the pale masklike face of the secretary.
That grave, almost stern countenance relaxed into a smile.
“I suspected no more than I suspect now,” was his easy equivocation. “And all that I suspect now is that some petty enemy is attempting to scare Your Majesty.”
“To scare me?” Gustavus flushed to the temples. “Am I a man to be scared?”
“Ah, but consider, Sire, and you, Bjelke,” Armfelt was bleating. “This may be a friendly warning. In all humility, Sire, let me suggest that you incur no risk; that you countermand the masquerade.”
“And permit the insolent writer to boast that he frightened the King?” sneered Bjelke.
“Faith, Baron, you are right. The thing is written with intent to make a mock of me.”
“But if it were not so, Sire?” persisted the distressed Armfelt. And volubly he argued now to impose caution, reminding the King of his enemies, who might, indeed, be tempted to go the lengths of which the anonymous writer spoke. Gustavus listened, and was impressed.
“If I took heed of every admonition,” he said, “I might as well become a monk at once. And yet—” He took his chin in his hand, and stood thoughtful, obviously hesitating, his head bowed, his straight, graceful figure motionless.
Thus until Bjelke, who now desired above all else the very thing he had come hot-foot to avert, broke the silence to undo what Armfelt had done.
“Sire,” he said, “you may avoid both mockery and danger, and yet attend the masquerade. Be sure, if there is indeed a plot, the assassins will be informed of the disguise you are to wear. Give me your flame-studded domino, and take a plain black one for yourself.”
Armfelt gasped at the audacity of the proposal, but Gustavus gave no sign that he had heard. He continued standing in that tense attitude, his eyes vague and dreamy. And as if to show along what roads of thought his mind was travelling, he uttered a single word a name—in a questioning voice scarce louder than a whisper.
Ankarstrom?
Later again he was to think of Ankarstrom, to make inquiries concerning him, which justifies us here in attempting to follow those thoughts of his. They took the road down which his conscience pointed. Above all Swedes he had cause to fear John Jacobi Ankarstrom, for, foully as he had wronged many men in his time, he had wronged none more deeply than that proud, high-minded nobleman. He hated Ankarstrom as we must always hate those whom we have wronged, and he hated him the more because he knew himself despised by Ankarstrom with a cold and deadly contempt that at every turn proclaimed itself.
That hatred was more than twenty years old. It dated back to the time when Gustavus had been a vicious youth, and Ankarstrom himself a boy. They were much of an age. Gustavus had put upon his young companion an infamous insult, which had been answered by a blow. His youth and the admitted provocation alone had saved Ankarstrom from the dread consequence of striking a Prince of the Royal Blood. But they had not saved him from the vindictiveness of Gustavus. He had kept his lust of vengeance warm, and very patiently had he watched and waited for his opportunity to destroy the man, who had struck him.
That chance had come four years ago—in 1788—during the war with Russia. Ankarstrom commanded the forces defending the island of Gothland. These forces were inadequate for the task, nor was the island in a proper state of defence, being destitute of forts. To have persevered in resistance might have been heroic, but it would have been worse than futile, for not only would it have entailed the massacre of the garrison, but it must have further subjected the inhabitants to all the horrors of sack and pillage.
In the circumstances, Ankarstrom had conceived it his duty to surrender to the superior force of Russia, thereby securing immunity for the persons and property of the inhabitants. In this the King perceived his chance to indulge his hatred. He caused Ankarstrom to be arrested and accused of high treason, it being alleged against him that he had advised the people of Gothland not to take up arms against the Russians. The royal agents found witnesses to bear false evidence against Ankarstrom, with the result that he was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment in a fortress. But the sentence was never carried out. Gustavus had gone too far, as he was soon made aware. The feelings against him which hitherto had smouldered flamed out at this crowning act of injustice, and to repair his error Gustavus made haste, not, indeed, to exonerate Ankarstrom from the charges brought against him, but to pardon him for his alleged offences.
When the Swedish nobleman was brought to Court to receive this pardon, he used it as a weapon against the King whom he despised.
“My unjust judges,” he announced in a ringing voice, the echoes of which were carried to the ends of Sweden, “have never doubted in their hearts my innocence of the charges brought against me, and established by means of false witnesses. The judgment pronounced against me was unrighteous. This exemption from it is my proper due. Yet I would rather perish through the enmity of the King than live dishonoured by his clemency.”
Gustavus had set his teeth in rage when those fierce words were reported to him, and his rage had been increased when he was informed of the cordial reception which everywhere awaited Ankarstrom on his release. He perceived how far he had overshot his mark, and how, in seeking treacherously to hurt Ankarstrom, he had succeeded only in hurting himself. Nor had he appeased the general indignation by his pardon. True, the flame of revolt had been quelled. But he had no lack of evidence that the fire continued to burn steadily in secret, and to eat its way further and further into the ranks of noble and simple alike.
It is little wonder, then, that in this moment, with that warning lying there before him, the name of Ankarstrom should be on his lips, the thought of Ankarstrom, the fear of Ankarstrom, looming big in his mind. It was big enough to make him heed the warning. He dropped into a chair.
“I will not go,” he said, and Bjelke saw that his face was white, his hands shaking.
But when the secretary had repeated the proposal which had earlier gone unheard, Gustavus caught at it with sudden avidity, and with but little concern for the danger that Bjelke might be running. He sprang up, applauding it. If a conspiracy there was, the conspirators would thus be trapped; if there were no conspiracy, then this attempt to frighten him should come to nothing; thus he would be as safe from the mockery of his enemies as from their knives. Nor did Armfelt protest or make further attempts to dissuade him from going. In the circumstances proposed by Bjelke, the risk would be Bjelke’s, a matter which troubled Armfelt not at all; indeed, he had no cause to love Bjelke, in whom he beheld a formidable rival, and it would be to him no cause for tears if the knife intended for the royal vitals should find its way into Bjelke’s instead.
So Baron Bjelke, arrayed in the domino copied from the penitential sack, departed for the Opera House, leaving Gustavus to follow. Yet, despite the measure of precaution, no sooner had the masked King himself entered the crowded theatre, leaning upon the arm of the Count of Essen, than he conceived that he beheld confirmation of the warning, and regretted that he had not heeded it to the extent of remaining absent. For one of the first faces he beheld, one of the few unmasked faces in that brilliantly lit salon, was the face of Ankarstrom, and Ankarstrom appeared to be watching the entrance.
Gustavus checked in his stride, a tremor ran through him, and he stiffened in his sudden apprehension, for the sight of the tall figure and haughty, resolute face of the nobleman he had wronged was of more significance than at first might seem. Ever since his infamous trial Ankarstrom had been at pains to seize every occasion of marking his contempt for his Prince. Never did he fail upon the King’s appearance in any gathering of which he was a member to withdraw immediately; and never once had he been known deliberately to attend any function which was to be graced by the presence of Gustavus. How, then, came he here to this ball given by the King’s own command unless he came for the fell purpose of which the letter had given warning?
The King’s impulse was to withdraw immediately. He was taken by a curious, an almost unreasoning, fear that was quite foreign to him, who, for all his faults, had never yet lacked courage. But, even as he hesitated, a figure swept past him in a domino flecked with flames, surrounded by revellers of both sexes, and he remembered that if Ankarstrom were bent on evil his attention would be held by that figure before which the crowd fell back, and opened out respectfully, believing it to be the King’s. Yet none the less it was Gustavus himself that Ankarstrom continued to regard in such a way that the King had a feeling that his mask was made of glass.
And then quite suddenly, even as he was on the point of turning, another wave of revellers swept frantically up, and in a moment Gustavus and the Count of Essen were surrounded. Another moment and the buffeting crowd had separated him from his grand equerry. He found himself alone in the centre of this knot of wild fellows who, seeming to mistake him for one of themselves, forced him onward with them in their career. For a moment he attempted to resist. But as well might he have resisted a torrent. Their rush was not to be stemmed. It almost swept him from his feet, and to save himself he must perforce abandon himself to the impetus. Thus he was swirled away across the floor of the amphitheatre, helpless as a swimmer in strong waters, and with the fear of the drowning clutching now at his heart.
He had an impulse to unmask, proclaim himself, and compel the respect that was his due. But to do so might be to expose himself to the very danger of whose presence he was now convinced. His only hope must lie in allowing himself to be borne passively along until a chance opening allowed him to escape from these madmen.
The stage had been connected with the floor of the theatre by a broad flight of wooden steps. Up this flight he was carried by that human wave. But on the stage itself he found an anchorage at last against one of the wings. Breathing hard, he set his back to it, waiting for the wave to sweep on and leave him. Instead, it paused and came to rest with him, and in that moment some one touched him on the shoulder. He turned his head, and looked into the set face of Ankarstrom, who was close behind him. Then a burning, rending pain took him in his side, and he grew sick and dizzy. The uproar of voices became muffled; the lights were merged into a luminous billow that swelled and shrank and then went out altogether.
The report of the pistol had been lost in the general din to all but those who stood near the spot where it had been fired. And these found themselves suddenly borne backwards by the little crowd of maskers that fell away from the figure lying prone and bleeding on the stage.
Voices were raised, shouting “Fire! Fire!” Thus the conspirators sought to create confusion, that they might disperse and lose themselves in the general crowd. That confusion, however, was very brief. It was stemmed almost immediately by the Count of Essen, who leapt up the steps to the stage with a premonition of what had happened. He stooped to rip away the mask from the face of the victim, and, beholding, as he had feared, the livid countenance of his King, he stood up, himself almost as pale.
“Murder has been done!” he roared. “Let the doors be closed and guarded, and let no one leave the theatre.” Instantly was his bidding done by the officers of the guard.
Those of the King’s household who were in attendance came forward now to raise Gustavus, and help to bear him to a couch. There presently he recovered consciousness, whilst a physician was seeing to his hurt, and as soon as he realized his condition his manner became so calm that, himself, he took command of the situation. He issued orders that the gates of the city should be closed against everybody, whilst himself apologizing to the Prussian minister who was near him for issuing that inconvenient but necessary order.
“The gates shall remain closed for three days, sir,” he announced. “During that time you will not be able to correspond with your Court; but your intelligence, when it goes, will be more certain, since by that time it should be known whether I can survive or not.”
His next order, delivered in a voice that was broken by his intense suffering, was to the chamberlain Benzelstjerna, commanding that all present should unmask and sign their names in a book before being suffered to depart. That done, he bade them bear him home on the couch on which he had been placed that he might be spared the agony of more movement than was necessary.
Thus his grenadiers bore him on their shoulders, lighted by torches, through the streets that were now thronged, for the rumour had now gone forth that the King was dead, and troops had been called out to keep order. Beside him walked Armfelt in his suit of shimmering white satin, weeping at once for his King and for himself, for he knew that he was of those who must fall with Gustavus. And, knowing this, there was bitter rage in his heart against the men who had wrought this havoc, a rage that sharpened his wits to an unusual acuteness.
At last the King was once more in his apartments awaiting the physicians who were to pronounce his fate, and Armfelt kept him company among others, revolving in his mind the terrible suspicion he had formed.
Presently came Duke Charles, the King’s brother, and Benzelstjerna with the list of those who had been present at the ball.
“Tell me,” he asked, before the list was read to him, “is the name of Ankarstrom included in it?”
“He was the last to sign, Sire,” replied the chamberlain.
The King smiled grimly. “Tell Lillesparre to have him arrested and questioned.”
Armfelt flung forward. “There is another who should be arrested, too!” he cried fiercely. And added, “Bjelke!”
“Bjelke?”
The King echoed the name almost in anger at the imputation. Armfelt spoke torrentially. “It was he persuaded you to go against your own judgment when you had the warning, and at last induced you to it by offering to assume your own domino. If the assassins sought the King, how came they to pass over one who wore the King’s domino, and to penetrate your own disguise that was like a dozen others? Because they were informed of the change. But by whom—by whom? Who was it knew?”
“My God!” groaned the unfortunate King, who had in his time broken faith with so many, and was now to suffer the knowledge of this broken faith in one whom he had trusted above all others.
Baron Bjelke was arrested an hour later, arrested in the very act of entering his own home. The men of Lillesparre’s police had preceded him thither to await his return. He was quite calm when they surged suddenly about him, laid hands upon him, and formally pronounced him their prisoner.
“I suppose,” he said, “it was to have been inferred. Allow me to take my leave of the Baroness, and I shall be at your disposal.”
“My orders, Baron, are explicit,” he was answered by the officer in charge. “I am not to suffer you out of my sight.”
“How? Am I to be denied so ordinary a boon?” His voice quivered with sudden anger and something else.
“Such are my orders, Baron.”
Bjelke pleaded for five minutes’ grace for that leavetaking. But the officer had his orders. He was no more than a machine. The Baron raised his clenched hands in mute protest to the heavens, then let them fall heavily.
“Very well,” he said, and suffered them to thrust him back into his carriage and carry him away to the waiting Lillesparre.
He found Armfelt in the office of the chief of the police, haranguing Ankarstrom, who was already there under arrest. The favourite broke off as Bjelke was brought in.
“You were privy to this infamy, Bjelke,” he cried. “If the King does not recover—”
“He will not recover.” It was the cold, passionless voice of Ankarstrom that spoke. “My pistol was loaded with rusty nails. I intended to make quite sure of ridding my country of that perjured tyrant.”
Armfelt stared at the prisoner a moment with furious, bloodshot eyes. Then he broke into imprecations, stemmed only when Lillesparre ordered Ankarstrom to be removed. When he was gone, the chief of police turned to Bjelke.
“It grieves me, Baron, that we should meet thus, and it is with difficulty that I can believe what is alleged against you. Baron Armfelt is perhaps rendered hasty by his grief and righteous anger. But I hope that you will be able to explain—at least to deny your concern in this horrible deed.”
Very tense and white stood Bjelke.
“I have an explanation that should satisfy you as a man of honour,” he said quietly, “but not as chief of the police. I joined this conspiracy that I might master its scope and learn the intentions of the plotters. It was a desperate thing I did out of love and loyalty to the King, and I succeeded. I came to-night to the palace with information which should not only have saved the King’s life, but would have enabled him to smother the conspiracy for all time. On the threshold of his room this letter for the King was delivered into my hands. Read it, Lillesparre, that you may know precisely what manner of master you serve, that you may understand how Gustavus of Sweden recompenses love and loyalty. Read it, and tell me how you would have acted in my place!”
And he flung the letter on to the writing-table at which sat Lillesparre.
The chief of police took it up, began to read, turned back to the superscription, then resumed his reading, a dull flush overspreading his face. Over his shoulder Armfelt, too, was reading. But Bjelke cared not. Let all the world behold that advertisement of royal infamy, that incriminating love-letter from Bjelke’s wife to the King who had dishonoured him.
Lillesparre was stricken dumb. He dared not raise his eyes to meet the glance of the prisoner. But the shameless Armfelt sucked in a breath of understanding.
“You admit your guilt, then?” he snarled.
“That I sent the monster to the masquerade, knowing that there the blessed hand of Ankarstrom would give him his passport out of a world he had befouled—yes.”
“The rack shall make you yield the name of every one of the conspirators.”
“The rack!” Bjelke smiled disdainfully, and shrugged. “Your men, Lillesparre, were very prompt and very obdurate. They would not allow me to take leave of the Baroness, so that she has escaped me. But I am not sure that it is not a fitter vengeance to let her live and remember. That letter may now be delivered to the King, for whom it is intended. Its fond messages may lighten the misery of his remaining hours.”
His face was contorted, with rage, thought Armfelt, who watched him, but in reality with pain caused by the poison that was corroding his vitals. He had drained a little phial just before stepping into the presence of Lillesparre, as they discovered upon inquiries made after he had collapsed dead at their feet.
This caused them to bring back Ankarstrom, that he might be searched, lest he, too, should take some similar way of escaping them. When he search was done, having discovered nothing, Lillesparre commanded that he should not have knife or fork or metal comb, or anything with which he might take his life.
“You need not fear that I shall seek to evade the sacrifice,” he assured them, his demeanour haughty, his eyes aglow with fanatic zeal. “It is the price I pay for having rid Nature of a monster and my country of a false, perjured tyrant, and I pay it gladly.” As he ceased he smiled, and drew from the gold lace of his sleeve a surgeon’s lancet. “This was supplied me against my need to open a vein. But the laws of God and man may require my death upon the scaffold.”
And, smiling, he placed the lancet on Lillesparre’s table.
Upon his conviction execution followed, and it lasted three days—from April 19th to 21 st—being attended by all the horrible and gradual torturings reserved for regicides. Yet possibly he did not suffer more than his victim, whose agony had lasted for thirteen days, and who perished miserably in the consciousness that he deserved his fate, whilst Ankarstrom was uplifted and fortified by his fanaticism.
The scaffold was erected on the Stora Torget, facing the Opera House of Stockholm, where the assassination had taken place. Thence the dismembered remains of Ankarstrom were conveyed to the ordinary gallows in the suburb of Sodermalm to be exhibited, the right hand being nailed below the head. Under this hand on the morrow was found a tablet bearing the legend:
Blessed the hand
That saved the Fatherland.
