words however were interrupted by constant cries of the victims calling
on their fellow-countrymen to avenge them. At last the agony of suspense
was over. One after another the condemned mounted the scaffold and were
decapitated with all the refinement of cruelty that the bloodthirsty
monarch and his satellites could devise. Over seventy in all were
slaughtered, and their gory bodies piled up in one promiscuous mass in
the centre of the square. On the following day the scene of carnage was
renewed, several suspected citizens being seized in their houses and
dragged to the place of blood. One poor wretch was executed for no other
reason than because he was discovered weeping at the sight of his
friends' death. Not till the following Saturday was the carnage over and
the weltering mass conveyed outside the town. The body of Sture,
together with the body of one of his babes, was dug up by Christiern's
orders and burned, and the property of all who were slaughtered was
seized and confiscated. Having thus effected his diabolical purpose and
ridded himself of the flower of the Swedish patriots, the gory monarch
set his officers at the head of affairs, and taking Christina and her
two boys with him, marched through the land to Denmark, where he threw
Christina and her children into prison.[52]

Through all that summer and autumn Gustavus Vasa had been cooped up in
his hiding-place on the Maelar. Once, in peril of his life, he had
approached the venerable Archbishop Ulfsson and solicited his advice.
But he found little comfort there. Ulfsson urged him to go boldly to
Christiern and beg for mercy. He even offered to intercede for the young
man, and encouraged him with the assertion that he had been included
among those to whom the king had promised immunity at the surrender of
Christina. Gustavus, however, knew too well what reliance he could place
on Christiern's word. With a downcast spirit he went back to his
hiding-place, resolved to await further developments before he ventured
forth. It was a time of harrowing suspense, the iron entering into his
very soul. Each day brought new intelligence of the victories of
Christiern and the gradual dismemberment of the Swedish forces. His
hopes were already well-nigh shattered when the report was wafted across
the lake that his father, along with the other patriot leaders, had been
slaughtered in the capital. Horror-stricken and overwhelmed with grief,
he sprang to his feet, resolved t