V

When they were alone Galeotto said to him, 'Well, Master, what think you of my experiment?'

'The gold was in the rods,' replied Leonardo dryly.

'What rods? What do you mean, Sir?'

'The rods with which you stirred the molten metal. I saw all.'

'Did you not yourself examine all my utensils?'

'These rods were not those we examined.'

'Not those! Master, permit me——'

'Have I not told you I saw everything?' repeated Leonardo with a smile. 'Be not obstinate, Galeotto. The gold was concealed in hollow rods tipped with wood. When the wooden ends were consumed in the molten mass, the gold fell into it.'

The old man's legs shook; over his face spread a look at once abject and pathetic. Leonardo touched him on the shoulder.

'Fear not, Messer Galeotto, none shall know. I am no tale-bearer.'

The impostor seized his hand feverishly and cried:—

'You will not betray me?'

'No. I wish you no ill. But, Messer Galeotto, why these frauds?'

'Oh, Messer Leonardo,' cried the other, and immediately the boundless despair in his eyes was transfigured by a flash of hope, 'I swear to you by God, that if I seem to have practised deception, 'tis but for the welfare of the duchy, for the triumph of science, and because my deception shall endure but a brief space. For, Messer Leonardo, truth it is that I have verily found the philosopher's stone. I do not assert that I have it yet in my possession, but I know that it already exists. That is to say, it as good as exists; for I have found the way, and you know that the way is everything. Three or four more experiments, and lo! it is accomplished. What was I to do, Messere? Is not the discovery of so grand a truth justification for so small a deception?'

'Nay, Messer Galeotto,' replied Leonardo gravely, 'to what purpose would you play with me at blind-man's-buff? You know right well, even as I know, that the transmutation of metals is a baseless dream: that there is no philosopher's stone, nor can be one. Alchemy, necromancy, black magic, all these sciences not founded on mathematics and exact experiment are delusion or deception—flags of charlatans, swelled but by the bellying of the wind, after which runs the gaping herd, applauding it knows not what.'

His eyes round and bright with astonishment, the alchemist hung on the lips of the master, and when Leonardo stopped he did not reply. Presently, however, he nodded his head intelligently and winked.

'Ah! ah! Messer Leonardo, but this will not serve. Am I not of the initiated? And do we not all know that thou thyself art the prince of alchemists, the possessor of the most recondite mysteries of nature, the new Hermes Trismegistus, the new Prometheus.'

'I?'

'Thou thyself, Master.'

'Call you this jesting, Messer Galeotto?'

'Contrariwise. 'Tis you, Messer Leonardo, who would jest. How astute and impenetrable you are! In my time I have seen many who were jealous of their secrets of science, never an one like you.'

Leonardo looked at him searchingly; he strove in vain to be angry. He smiled involuntarily.

'Do you seriously believe in these arts?' he asked.

'Do I believe in them? Messere, if God Himself came to me hither at this moment and said to me: "Galeotto, there is no philosopher's stone," I should answer him: "Lord, even as it is true that thou hast created me, so is it true that there is that stone, and that I shall find it."'

After this Leonardo disputed no more, but listened with interest to the speculations of the alchemist. Presently the talk swerved to the possible assistance of the Devil in the occult sciences; the old man, however, would none of this. He declared the Devil to be the weakest, the most miserable, the most impotent of all the creations of God; he himself had faith only in the human mind, and believed that to science all things were possible.

Then suddenly, without any consciousness of an abrupt transition, and as if playing with some agreeable and diverting recollection, he asked whether Messer Leonardo had frequent apparitions of elemental spirits. And when his interlocutor confessed to never having seen any, Galeotto again refused to believe him; and with relish told how the salamander has a body a finger and a half in length, spotted, thin, and harsh, while the sylphide is blue as the sky, transparent, and ethereal. He spoke also of the nymphs and undines that live in the rivers and the sea; of the gnomes, pygmies, and underground dwarfs; of the durgans and dryads, dwellers in trees, and the rare spirits that inhabit precious stones.

'I cannot convey to you,' concluded Galeotto, 'how beneficent and exquisite are these genii!'

'Why, then,' asked Leonardo, 'do they appear only to the elect?'

'Would you have them appear to all? They dread vulgar persons, libertines, materialists, drunkards, and gluttons. They affect the innocent, the childlike, simple ones. They live only where there is no malice nor cunning. Timid and fearful as gazelles they take refuge from human eyes in their native elements.'

And a smile of infinite tenderness illuminated the old man's face, as if at the memory of long-ago dreams.

'What a charming old fool!' thought Leonardo, no longer scornful, but ready to simulate participation in any scientific absurdity to please this man, whom now he treated with affectionate consideration, like a child.

They parted as friends; and the moment he was alone the alchemist plunged into new experiments with the oil of Venus.