First he showed his crucible, a melting-pot with thick sides of fire-proof clay; he begged each one to examine it, and tap it, and convince himself there was no concealed deception, while he animadverted on the frauds of pretended philosophers who were wont to have vessels with false bottoms in which gold had been placed, not made. He also craved inspection of the pewter, the fuel, the bellows, and all else, to prove his good faith. Then the lead was chopped into small pieces and consigned to the crucible, which was then put on the hottest place of the furnace. The silent, cross-eyed famulus—so pale, corpse-like and surly, that one of the ladies near fainted, believing him the expected Messer Satan—began to work a huge pair of bellows, and the fire quickly leaped into flame. Galeotto meanwhile entertained his visitors with conversation, and awakened general mirth by calling his science of alchemy casta meretrix, who had many lovers but deluded them all, offered easy conquest to everybody, but had so far yielded to the embraces of none.
Luigi Marliani, the court physician, a fat, taciturn, gloomy man with a dignified and intelligent face, lost patience with this chatter, and wiping his brow, cried out:—
'Messer Galeotto, methinks 'tis time for business. Your metal is already bubbling.'
Galeotto opened a little blue paper packet which contained a bright yellow powder, viscous and sparkling, like highly polished glass. It had a strong smell of burnt sea-salt. This was the momentous tincture, the long-sought, priceless jewel of alchemy, the wonder-working lapis philosophorum.
With the point of a knife he detached a speck of the powder no larger than a turnip-seed, wrapped it in a ball of bees-wax, and tossed it into the boiling pewter.
'And what do you consider the strength of that solution?' asked Marliani.
'One to two thousand eight hundred and twenty of the metal to be converted,' replied Galeotto. 'Naturally my solution is not yet perfected, but shortly, I hope, the figures will be one to a million. Then it will suffice to take of it the weight of a grain of millet, to dissolve it in a barrel of water containing the parings of a hazelnut; and finally, to sprinkle your vines therewith; in result you will have your vintage in May. Mare tingerem si Mercurius esset. I would turn the sea into gold had I competency in quicksilver.'
Marliani turned away with a shrug. This bombast infuriated him, and he hinted the impossibility of such transformations by arguments supported by Aristotle.
'Have patience, domine magister,' said Galeotto with a smile; 'in a little space I will propound to you such a syllogism as not all your logic can confute.'
Therewith he threw a handful of white powder in the fire. Clouds of thick smoke filled the laboratory. Hissing and crackling, up leapt a many-coloured flame, changing like a rainbow from blue to green, from red to yellow. The spectators were alarmed, and Filiberta afterward swore that at the instant the flame was purple, she saw in it the face of the Devil. The alchemist with a long hooked iron raised the lid of the crucible. The metal, white-hot, bubbled and hissed and gurgled. Then the lid was replaced; the bellows soughed and whistled, and when ten minutes later a thin iron rod was dipped into the molten liquid, all saw hanging on its end a yellow drop.