It is said that one of the conspirators offered to give him all the wealth he then possessed, as well as all that which he was to inherit at a future date, if he would change places with him; but Ankarström refused. When the time came, Ankarström suddenly bethought him that he might mistake one of the nobles for the king, as several of them were dressed in similar costumes. But the Count de Horn reassured him. "Fire boldly," said he, "at the one to whom I shall say, '_Good-day, handsome masquerader_.' He will be the king." At two in the morning Gustavus was strolling about, leaning on the arm of the Count d'Essen, whom he had married to de Ribbing's _fiancée_, when the Count de Horn approached him and said, "_Good-day, handsome masquerader_." The next moment a dull report was heard, and Gustavus tottered, crying out-- "I am killed!" Except those who were round about the king no one had perceived what had happened. The pistol was concealed in a muff; the report had been drowned amidst the buzz of conversation and the strains of the orchestra, and the smoke remained buried in the muff. But at the king's exclamation, and on seeing him fall back fainting in the arms of d'Essen, everyone ran up; in the commotion that followed it was quite easy for Ankarström to put himself at a distance from the king and even to leave the hall; but in his flight he dropped one of his pistols. The pistol was picked up, hot and still smoking. Next day every gun-seller in Stockholm was questioned, and one of them recognised the pistol as one he had sold to Ankarström. An hour later, Ankarström was arrested at his own house, and a special commission was appointed to try him. He confessed to, but gloried in, his crime. As to his accomplices, he declined under any conditions whatever to reveal their names. The trial dragged on slowly; it was hoped against hope that Ankarström would give away the conspirators; finally, on 29 April 1792, forty-four days after the murder, he was condemned. The sentence was that he was to be beaten with rods for three days, then beheaded. In spite of the length and the ignominy of the punishment, Ankarström remained firm to the very end. While being taken in the cart to his execution, he looked with perfect equanimity upon the thousands of spectators who thronged round the scaffold. When he mounted the scaffold he asked for a few minutes in which to make his peace with God. It was granted him. He knelt down, prayed and then gave himself up to the executioners. He was not quite thirty-three years of age.