BOOK X

CALM WATERS--1499-1500

'_Le onde sonore e luminose sono governate dalle stesse leggi che

governano le onde delle acque: l'angolo incidente deve eguagliare

l'angolo riflettente._'

LEONARDO DA VINCI.

(The waves of light and sound are governed by the same mechanical

law as that governing waves of water: the angle of incidence equals

the angle of reflection.)

'_Il duca ha perso lo Stato e la roba e la libertà; e nessuna sua

opera si fini per lui._'

LEONARDO DA VINCI.

(The duke has lost state, wealth, and liberty; not one of his works

will be finished by himself.)

I

The Duke's treasury, a subterranean chamber very long and narrow and

piled with huge oak chests, was entered from the north-west tower of the

Rocchetta by a small iron door set in the thickness of the wall and

adorned with an unfinished painting by Leonardo. On the first night of

September 1499, Messer Ambrogio Ferrari the court treasurer, and Messer

Borgonzio Botta the comptroller of the ducal revenue, with their

assistants, shovelled coins, pearls, and other treasures hastily from

the oak chests, threw them into leathern bags, which they sealed with

the ducal seal, and consigned to servants to be packed upon mules.

Already two hundred and forty bags had been sealed and thirty mules had

been loaded, yet the guttering candles still showed that the chests

contained great heaps of silver. Il Moro, meanwhile, sat at a portable

writing-desk heaped with registers and account-books, but gazed blankly

at the flame of the candle, and paid no attention to the work of the

treasurers. Since the terrible news had reached him of the defeat of

Galeazzo Sanseverino, the commander of his forces, and of the

inevitable nearing of the French, he seemed to have fallen into some

strange torpor which resembled insensibility.

Presently Ambrogio Ferrari inquired whether the Duke wished to take the

gold and silver plate also; but Ludovico, after frowning and apparently

making an effort to attend, turned away, waved his hand, and once more

fixed his eyes upon the candle. The question was repeated, but this time

he did not even feign attention; and presently the treasurers, unable to

obtain an answer, went away. Il Moro remained alone.

A few minutes later, the old chamberlain announced Messer Bernardino da

Corte, the newly appointed commandant of the fortress. The Duke roused

himself, passed his hand over his brow, and bade his approach.

Ludovico, distrustful of the scions of great families, liked raising men

from nothing, making the first last, and the last first. This Bernardino

was the son of a footman, and had himself in his boyhood worn the court

livery. The Duke had, however, exalted him to the highest offices of

state, and now, as a proof of final confidence in his ability and good

faith, had charged him with the defence of the castle of Milan, his last

stronghold.

The Duke received the new governor graciously, bade him sit, spread

before him the plan of the castle, explained the signals concerted

between the fortress and the town. For example, in the daytime a curved

gardening knife (or at night a flaming torch) displayed from the main

tower of the castle was to show the need for instant help; a white

sheet, hung on the tower of Bona, signified treachery within the walls;

a chair suspended by a rope meant lack of powder; a petticoat, lack of

wine; a pair of breeches, scarcity of bread; an earthenware pot, the

need of a doctor.

Il Moro had himself invented this code, and was childishly pleased with

it, as if in it lay somehow his chief hope of safety.

'Remember, Bernardino,' thus he concluded his exordium, 'everything has

been foreseen. You have sufficiency of money, powder, provisions,

fire-arms; the three thousand mercenaries are already paid; the fortress

is in your hands, and should be able to stand a three years' siege. I,

however, only ask you to hold it for three months; if at the end of

that time I have not returned to your relief, you must do what you

think best. Now you know all. Farewell, my son; may the Lord protect

you!' And he favoured him with an embrace.

The governor of the castle dismissed, Il Moro bade the page prepare his

camp bed. He prayed, and laid himself down, but sleep proved impossible.

He lighted a candle, took a packet of papers from his wallet, and found

a poem by one Antonio Cammelli da Pistoia, Bellincioni's rival, who on

the first appearance of the French had deserted his patron. The poem

represented the war between Ludovico and Louis XII. as a conflict

between a winged serpent and a cock:--

'Italia's lord, we lay to heart thy fate,

For good it is to learn by other men's undoing.

O bitter word to speak, the loss of all things rueing--

When fickle fortune smiled, I was a potentate!

The world to Ludovico seemed a fief but late;

Itself and all its glory appeared but of his doing;

Yet Heav'n, his stomach high and proud presumption viewing,

His every hope and scheme did suddenly frustrate.'

The Duke's soul was pervaded by melancholy, which was not, however,

entirely disagreeable. It was partly the pride of a martyr. He

remembered the servility of the sonnets the same poet had dedicated to

him not long ago:--

'Speak, potent lord, and say, The world to me is given!'

It was midnight, and the flame of the dying candle flickered and grew

dim, but still the Duke continued to pace the gloomy room, thinking of

his griefs, of the injustice of blind fortune, of the ingratitude of

men.

'What wrong have I done them? Why do they hate me? They call me a

villain and an assassin; but what have I done more than Romulus who

killed his brother, and Cæsar, and Alexander, and all the heroes of

antiquity? Were _they_ villains and assassins? My desire was to give

them a new age of gold, such as had not been seen since the days of

Augustus and the Antonines. A little longer, and under my rule Italy

would have been united; the laurels of Apollo would have bloomed, and

the olives of Pallas; the reign of peace would have begun, and the

worship of the muses. First among princes, I sought greatness not in

deeds of war, but in the fruits of golden peace, in the protection of

talent, Bramante, Pacioli, Caradosso, Leonardo, and how many others! In

days to come, when the noise of arms shall be forgotten, their names

will be remembered, together with the name of Sforza. To what a height

should not I, the new Pericles, have raised my new Athens, but for this

horde of northern barbarians who have cut short my work? Why, O my God

_why_ is this permitted?'

And, his head drooping on his breast, he thought again of the lines:--

'O bitter word to speak, the loss of all things rueing--

When fickle fortune smiled, I was a potentate!'

The candle flared for the last time, illuminating the vaulting of the

roof, and the fresco of Mercury above the treasure-house door. Then it

sank down and went out. The Duke shuddered, for he thought it a bad

omen. Fearful of awakening Ricciardetto, he groped his way to the bed,

lay down again, and this time fell asleep at once.

He dreamed that he knelt to Madonna Beatrice, who having discovered his

intrigue with Lucrezia was taxing him with it, and striking him full in

the face. He was pained, yet rejoiced that she had returned to life. He

submitted to her chastisement, caught her hands that he might kiss them,

and wept for love. But suddenly there stood before him, not Beatrice,

but the Mercury of Leonardo's fresco over the door. The god seized him

by the hair, crying:--

'O fool, and blind! In what dost thou yet hope? Will all your deceits

save you from the just punishment of God? Murderer and villain!'

When he awoke, the morning light was shining on the windows. The lords,

the knights, the captains, the German mercenaries, who were to escort

him to the court of Maximilian, in all, some three thousand horsemen,

were awaiting his presence by the main road which led north--towards the

Alps.

Ludovico mounted, and rode to the Monastery delle Grazie, that he might

pray for the last time beside the grave of his lost Beatrice. Later,

when the sun was high in the heavens, the cortège began its march

through Como, Bellaggio, Bormio, Bolzano, and Brisina, to the Tyrol, and

the city of Innsbrück.

II

The journey took over a fortnight, for a rainy autumn had spoiled the

roads. On the 18th of September, the Duke, being fatigued and

indisposed, determined to pass the night in a mountain cave, which

afforded shelter to a few herdsmen. It would not have been difficult to

find a more commodious resting-place, but Il Moro deliberately chose

this wild spot for his reception of the ambassador from Maximilian. The

watch-fires illumined the stalactites and the natural vaulting of the

cavern; pheasants were roasting for supper; and the Duke, seated on a

camp-chair, his feet on a brazier, and his head muffled--for he was

suffering from toothache--reflected, not without a certain satisfaction,

on the greatness of his misfortunes. Lucrezia Crivelli, bright and

gentle as ever, was preparing an anodyne of wine, pepper, cloves, and

other potent spices for the illustrious sufferer.

'So, then, Messer Odoardo,' said Il Moro to the Emperor's envoy,' you

can tell his Majesty where, and in what condition you found the

legitimate ruler of Lombardy.'

Ludovico was in one of the fits of loquacity which sometimes succeeded

to long periods of silence and dejection. 'Foxes have holes,' he went

on, 'and birds of the air have nests, but I have not where to lay my

head. Corio,' he turned to the chronicler, 'in compiling your annals

omit not description of this lodging, the refuge of the last heir of the

great Sforzas, of the descendant of Anglus, the Trojan, the comrade of

Æneas.'

'My lord,' said Odoardo, 'your misfortunes deserve the pen of a new

Tacitus.'

Lucrezia brought the anodyne, and the Duke paused to look at her

admiringly. Her pale clear face was bright in the rosy glow of the

firelight, her black hair coiled smoothly above her pure forehead, upon

which glowed the single diamond of the _ferroniera_. She looked at her

lover with her grave, innocent, and observant eyes; on her lips was a

smile of almost maternal tenderness.

'Sweet heart!' thought Ludovico, 'here is one who will never betray me!'

and receiving the medicament from her hand, he again turned to the

chronicler and said, with swelling sententiousness: 'Corio, set down

likewise this; "true friendship is proved in the furnace of affliction,

as gold is proved in the fire."'

'Eh, old fellow, why so gloomy?' cried Janachi, seating himself at the

Duke's feet, and slapping his knee, 'a truce to this black bile! There's

remedy for every ill save death, and trust me, old man, it's better to

be a living ass than a dead prince! Kiki riki! Look! look! what a throng

of ass-saddles we have here!'

'Well, what of it?' asked the Duke, wearily.

_'Moro mio, moro mio_, there's an old Story which says--'

'Well--go on; relate the story!'

The fool jumped to his feet, ringing his bells and shaking his rattle.

'Once upon a time there was a king in Naples, and he bade Giotto the

painter make him a wall-picture of his kingdom. And the saucy painter

drew a stout Ass carrying on his back a Saddle with the royal arms, the

sceptre, and the crown; and the Ass was sniffing at another Saddle, also

emblazoned with arms, sceptre and crown. Wherefore, dear Sir, I say to

thee, to-day the people of Milan are sniffing at the French Saddle. Let

them alone! Soon enough will it gall their backs, and they'll wish to be

quit of it!'

'_Stulti aliquando sapientes_,' said the Duke, with a melancholy smile

at this piece of imbecility. 'Corio, write in the chronicle----'

But he did not finish the phrase, for the snorting of horses, the tramp

of hoofs, and the buzz of voices were heard outside the cavern. Mariolo

Pusterla the chamberlain, his face pale and agitated, entered hastily,

and whispered with Calco the chief secretary.

'What has happened?' asked the Duke.

No one was willing to reply, and all eyes fell.

'Your Excellency----' began the secretary, in trembling tones, and broke

off.

'May the Lord support your Excellency!' said Luigi Marliani. 'Be

prepared; bad news has arrived from Milan.'

'Speak, then; speak! For God's sake, speak!' cried Ludovico, turning

pale. Then looking towards the entrance, he caught sight of a man

splashed with mud, and travel-worn. The Duke brushed Marliani aside,

hurried to the messenger, and snatching a letter from his hand, broke

the seal, read with lightning glance, uttered a cry, and sank senseless

to the ground. Marliani and Pusterla were barely in time to break his

fall.

On the 17th of September, the feast of San Satiro, the traitor

Bernardino da Corte had opened the gates of the Castle of Milan to the

French marshal, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio.

Ludovico was practised in the simulation of diplomatic faintness. This

time, however, the physicians had trouble in restoring him to

consciousness. When at last he regained his senses, he sighed, made the

sign of the cross, and murmured:--

'Since Judas there never was a traitor like Bernardino da Corte.'

And for the rest of the evening he did not utter a single word.

A few days later the Duke arrived at Innsbrück, where he was graciously

received by the Emperor and lodged in the imperial palace. One evening

he was walking up and down his chamber, and dictating to Bartolomeo

Calco credentials for the envoys whom he was secretly despatching to the

Sultan. The face of the old secretary expressed nothing but attention,

and his pen travelled rapidly over the paper, as the words fell from his

master's lips.

'"Firm and invariable in our good disposition towards your

Highness"'--so ran the document--'"and trusting that in the task of

recovering our lost dominions, we may look for aid to the magnanimity of

the powerful ruler of the Ottoman Empire, we have resolved to send three

different messengers by three different roads, so that at least one of

them may arrive and present our letter. The Pope, who by nature is

perfidious and wicked----"'

Here the pen of the dispassionate secretary stopped; he looked up,

wrinkling his brows. He could not believe his ears.

'The Pope?'

'Yes, the Pope. Go on,'

The secretary looked at his work again, and the pen scratched faster

than before.

'"The Pope, being by nature wicked and perfidious, has instigated the

French king to carry war into Lombardy."'

Then came the list of French victories.

'"Dismayed by these misfortunes,"' continued Il Moro frankly, '"we have

judged it prudent to seek refuge at the court of the Emperor Maximilian,

while awaiting the assistance of your Highness. All have betrayed us;

but more than the rest, Bernardino"'--here his voice shook--'"Bernardino

da Corte, a serpent warmed in our bosom, a slave whom we had heaped with

favours and benefactions; a traitor like unto Judas"--Nay, 'tis vain to

speak of Judas to an infidel; scratch out "Judas."'

He prayed the Sultan to assail Venice by sea and by land, assuring him

of easy victory and the complete destruction of that secular enemy of

the Ottomans, the arrogant Republic of St. Mark.

'"And we pray your Highness to remember,"' he concluded, '"that in this

war, as in every other undertaking, all we have is at the disposal of

your Highness, who in all Europe will find no more faithful ally than

Ourselves."'

He had approached the table and seemed desirous of adding yet another

few words; but in a sudden access of discouragement he waved his hand,

and threw himself on a seat. Calco carefully strewed the wet writing

with sand; then he looked up and saw that the Duke had covered his face

with his hands, and was weeping, his shoulders shaking with sobs.

'Lord, why hast thou permitted this? Where, where is Thine eternal

justice?' he mourned. Then uncovering his distorted face, which at that

moment seemed to belong to some feeble old woman, he said:--

'Bartolomeo, you know that I repose confidence in you. Tell me, on your

conscience, am I acting wisely?'

'Does your Excellency refer to the embassy to the Grand Turk?'

Il Moro nodded.

The old man wrinkled his forehead and puffed his lips meditatively.

'Certes, those who hunt with wolves must howl with them; yet if we look

at the matter from another point of view--in fine, if I am permitted to

counsel your Excellency, I would say, wait!'

'I have waited. Now I will demonstrate that the Duke of Milan is not to

be tossed aside like a mere pawn. My friend, I have been ever on the

side of right, and I have been most iniquitously abused. Who shall blame

me if I appeal, not only to the Grand Turk, but to the very devil

himself?'

'Yet an invasion by the infidel,' suggested the secretary, 'might

perchance be cause of grave peril to the Christian Church.'

'God forbid, Bartolomeo! I have considered that. I would suffer a

thousand deaths rather than bring damage to our holy Mother Church. But

hark you! You do not fully understand my design.'

At these words his lips took on their old rapacious smile. 'We will brew

these villains such a broth,' he continued; 'we will entangle them in

such nets, that none of them shall look again on God's world! But the

Grand Turk!--why, the Grand Turk is no more than a tool in my hands!

When the time is ripe we will cast him aside, and then we will root out

all that vile sect of Mahometans, and free the sacred sepulchre of the

Lord from the unclean domination of infidel dogs!'

Calco discreetly lowered his eyes and made no answer.

'This is bad,' he said to himself; 'these are dreams; in all this there

is no policy. He lets himself be carried too far, and he perceives not

consequences.'

But that night Ludovico, animated by hope in God and in the Grand Turk,

prayed long before his favourite picture, by Leonardo, in which the

Virgin was pourtrayed with the features and smile of Cecilia, Countess

Bergamini.

III

Ten days before the surrender of the castle, the French marshal,

Trivulzio, had made entry into Milan amid the pealing of bells and the

acclamation of the populace. The king's entry was fixed for the 6th of

October, and the citizens were preparing for his reception. The two

great angels which, fifty years earlier in the days of the 'Repubblica

Ambrosiana,' had represented the genii of popular liberty, were taken

from the cathedral treasury for use in the royal procession. Long disuse

had stiffened the springs by which their gilded wings were moved, and

they were accordingly sent for repair to the court mechanician, Leonardo

da Vinci.

Early one autumnal morning, while it was still dark, Leonardo sat at his

desk, busy with his calculations and his geometrical designs. Of late he

had resumed his study of aerostatics, and was constructing another

flying-machine. Its skeleton was spread across the room, not, like its

predecessor, resembling a bat, but rather a gigantic swallow. One of

the wings was completed; slender, sharply outlined, beautiful in form

and texture, it rose from floor to ceiling, and under its shadow Astro

was working at the two wooden angels of the former Milanese Republic. In

this latest apparatus Leonardo had determined to follow, as closely as

he might, the structure of those winged creatures which nature had

provided as models for a flying-machine. He still hoped to solve the

problem by close observance of mechanical laws; but though apparently he

knew all that could be known, there was still something which eluded his

comprehension, and which perhaps lay outside these laws with which he

was so familiar. As in his earlier experiments, he found himself brought

up against that subtle dividing line which separates the creations of

nature from the work of human hands; the structure of the living body

from the structure of the lifeless machine; and he began to think he was

aiming at the impossible--the irrational.

'Thank God, that is finished!' exclaimed Astro, winding up the springs

of the wooden angels.

Their heavy wings moved, and in the resultant waft of air, the delicate

wing of the great swallow stirred and rustled. The smith looked at it

with inexpressible tenderness.

'The time I have squandered on these stupid monsters!' he exclaimed,

pushing the angels away. 'From this out, Master, you may say what you

please, but I will not go from this room till I have finished my

swallow! Give me, pr'ythee, the design for the tail.'

'It is not ready, Astro. It demands further calculation.'

'But, Master, you promised it to me three days ago!'

'It cannot be helped. The tail of our bird is the rudder. The smallest

mistake will ruin the whole.'

'You know best, I suppose! I will get on with the second wing.'

'We had better wait. It may be necessary to introduce some

modification.'

The smith very carefully lifted the cane skeleton, overlaid with a

network of bullocks' tendons; he turned it round, and contemplated it

under every aspect. Then, his voice thick and trembling with excitement,

he cried:--

'Master, be not wroth, but hear! If your calculations lead you to the

conclusion that this machine also is useless, I swear to you that none

the less _I_ intend to fly. Yes, I will fly in spite of all your

damnable mechanics. I have no longer patience for waiting, because----'

He stopped short. Leonardo gazed at the wide, irregular, obstinate face,

impressed with a single, senseless, all-absorbing idea.

'Messere,' he added, more quietly, 'be so kind as to say plainly, are we

going to fly, or are we not?'

Leonardo had not the heart to tell him the naked truth.

'We cannot be quite certain till we have made the experiment,' he

replied; 'but I think we shall fly.'

'That is enough; I ask no more,' said the mechanic, clapping his hands.

'If _you_ say we shall fly, then the thing is done.'

He presently burst into a great laugh.

'What the devil amuses you?' asked Leonardo.

'Ah, forgive me, Master! I am always disturbing you. But when I fall

a-thinking of the poor folk of Milan, and of the French soldiers, and Il

Moro, and the king, I have to laugh because I feel so sorry for them.

Poor little creeping worms, poor little jumping grasshoppers! Always on

the same plot of earth to which they are chained by their feet, they

fight and they bite each other, and they think they are doing some very

great thing! How they will stare and gape when they see men alive and

flying. I misdoubt that they will believe their eyes. "These be two

gods," they will say. Astro, a god! I doubt the whole world will be

changed. I doubt wars and laws will be done with, and masters and

slaves. We cannot conceive how it will be! Soaring up to heaven like the

choirs of angels, all the people will shout Hosanna! O Messer Leonardo,

Messer Leonardo! is it true that verily thus it will be?'

He spoke wildly, like one in delirium.

'Poor fool!' thought Leonardo; 'what blind faith! What is to be done?

How can I tell him the truth? He will go crazed!'

At this moment there was a great knock at the street door, then a noise

of voices and steps, and then a rap at the door of the studio.

'What devil comes at this hour?' growled Astro. 'A pox on him! Who is

there? You won't see the Master. He has gone away from Milan.'

'Tis I, Astro--Luca Pacioli, the mathematician! Open, open, for God's

sake!'

The smith opened and let the friar enter. His face was blanched with

terror. Leonardo asked him hurriedly what had happened.

'To me, Messer Leonardo, nought--or leastways of that I will speak

later. I come from the castle. Oh, Messer Leonardo! The Gascon

bowmen--in fact the French--I saw it with my own eyes! _They are

destroying your Cavallo._ Let us run! Let us run!'

'Soft!' said the painter, though he also had paled. 'What shall we do by

running?'

'But you cannot sit here with folded hands while your masterpiece is

perishing? I have a recommendation to Monsieur de la Trémouille. We must

implore him----'

'We are too late.'

'No, no! there is still time! We can run by the garden, through the

hedge. If we but make haste!'

Dragged along by the monk, Leonardo set forth for the castle. On the way

Fra Luca told him of his own misadventure. The _lanzknechts_ had

plundered the cellar of the _Canonica_ of San Simpliciano, where he

dwelt; and being drunken, had wrought havoc through the house; and in

Fra Luca's cell, having chanced on certain geometrical models made in

crystal, had taken them for instruments of magic, and smashed them to

atoms.

'My poor innocent crystals, which had done them no manner of wrong,'

mourned the friar! Reached the piazza before the castle, they saw a

young French dandy attended by a numerous suite on the drawbridge.

'Maître Gilles!' cried Fra Luca overjoyed; and he explained to Leonardo

that this was a considerable and authoritative personage; his title,

'Whistler to the woodhens,' his office, to teach the finches, magpies,

parrots, and thrushes of the most Christian king their feats of singing,

talking, dancing, and other performances. Rumour asserted that the

'woodhens' were not the only bipeds who danced to the piping of Maître

Gilles; and altogether Fra Luca had long felt that he must be presented

with his books (richly bound) _De Divina Proportione_ and _Summa

Aritmetica_.

'Fra Luca,' said Leonardo, 'do not lose your opportunity--attend Maître

Gilles. I can manage my own case.'

'No, no,' said the other, somewhat ashamed, 'I can wait; or I will just

fly to him for an instant and learn whither he is going, and in a trice

I will be back with you--go you on towards Monsieur de la Trémouille.'

And gathering up the skirts of his brown habit, his bare feet shod with

clattering wooden pattens, the nimble monk ran after the 'Whistler to

the Woodhens'; while Leonardo crossed the drawbridge and entered the

inner court of the castle.

IV

The morning mists were rising, and the watch-fires already dying down.

The courtyard was crowded with cannon, ammunition, camp equipage, stable

provender and refuse. All around were movable booths and cooking-spits,

empty barrels serving as card-tables, hogsheads of wine, barrows of

provisions; great noises of laughter, curses, quarrelings in many

tongues, blasphemies, drunken shoutings and songs. At times an interval

of sudden stillness when officers of rank passed. At times drums beat

and brazen trumpets gave signal to the Rhenish and Suabian

_lanzknechts_, or Alpine horns were blown from the walls by mercenaries

from the Free Cantons of Uri and Unterwalden.

Making his way through the crowd of men and things, Leonardo reached the

centre of the square and found that the Colossus, the happy labour for

years of his maturest art, was still intact. The great duke, conqueror

of Lombardy, Francesco Attendolo Sforza, with his bald head, in form

like that of some Roman emperor, and his expression of leonine cruelty

and vulpine cunning, erect as ever, still sat his huge plunging charger

and trampled on his foe.

A great crowd of archers of various nationalities surrounded the statue,

disputing each in his own language, and gesticulating. Leonardo gathered

that a contest was imminent between a French and a German marksman, who,

after drinking four tankards of wine were to shoot at a distance of

fifty paces at the birthmark on the cheek of the great Sforza. The paces

were measured; lots were drawn as to who should shoot first; the wine

was poured out. The German drank the fill of a tankard without drawing

breath, another, and another, and another. Then he took his aim, bent

the bow, launched his arrow, and missed the mark. The arrow grazed the

cheek, and took off the tip of the left ear, but did no further damage.

It was now the turn of the Frenchman. He had brought his arbalist to his

shoulder, when a commotion arose among the onlookers. The crowd divided,

making space for the procession of a knight and his escort of

resplendent followers. He rode past, not heeding the marksmen.

'Who is that?' inquired Leonardo.

'Monseigneur de la Trémouille.'

'Then I am in time,' thought the artist; 'I must pursue him and make

supplication.'

Nevertheless he actually stood motionless where he was; oppressed by an

inability, a paralysis of the will, that would have hindered the

stirring of a finger had his very life been in danger. Repugnance,

shame, seized him at the thought of pushing his way through the crowd

that he might, like Fra Luca Pacioli, run after and pull at the skirts

of a person of quality. The Gascon shot his arrow; it whizzed through

the air, hit the mark, and penetrated deeply into the mole on

Francesco's cheek.

'_Bigorre! Bigorre! Montjoie! Saint Denis!_' shouted the soldiers,

throwing their caps into the air, '_Vive la France_!' The noisy crowd

again encircled the Colossus, the jargon of many tongues broke forth

anew; a fresh match was arranged, and again arrows whistled on the air

and wounded the great Duke. Leonardo could not move. Inconceivable as it

may seem, rooted to the spot as in some hideous dream, he watched the

slow destruction of the work of the six best years of his life; of

perhaps the greatest monument of the sculptor's art since the days of

Phidias and Praxiteles. Under a hail of bullets, arrows, and even

stones, the brittle clay was broken off in lumps or resolved into dust;

the supports were laid bare. The Colossus had become an immense iron

skeleton.

The sun streamed out from behind a bank of clouds. Nothing remained but

the headless body of a man, the trunk of a horse, the fragment of a

sceptre, and the inscription on the pedestal. 'Behold a god!' Just then

the commandant of the French troops, the old Marshal Gian Giacomo

Trivulzio, rode up. He looked at the place of the Colossus, stopped in

sheer astonishment, looked again, shading his eyes from the sun; then

turned to his attendants and asked--

'In the name of God, what has taken place?'

'_Monseigneur_,' replied a lieutenant. 'Captain Cockburn gave permission

to his cross-bowmen----'

'The Sforza monument! the work of Leonardo da Vinci--I made a target for

the archers of Gascony!' cried the marshal, and he rushed at the men,

who, intent on their work of destruction, had not observed his

displeasure; seized a Frenchman by the collar and flung him to the

ground, rating him soundly. In his fury the old general had become quite

purple.

'_Monseigneur_,' stammered the soldier, struggling to his knees, shaking

with fright, '_Monseigneur_, we did not know! Captain Cockburn had

said----'

'To hell with your Captain Cockburn! I'll hang every man jack of you!'

He flourished his sword and would have wounded some one had not Leonardo

caught his wrist with such force that the brazen sword-hilt was bent.

Trivulzio stared at the stranger in dire amazement while struggling to

free himself.

'Who is this man?' he exclaimed indignantly, and the artist himself

replied:--

'Leonardo da Vinci.'

'And how do you dare----' began the old marshal, still beside himself,

but meeting the clear unfaltering gaze of the eyes fixed upon him, he

broke off. 'Eh? you are Leonardo?' he said. 'I pray you loose my

arm--you have crushed the hilt.'

'_Monseigneur_,' said Leonardo, 'I beseech you.--Pardon these poor

fools!'

The marshal again stared in amazement; then smiled, and shook his head.

'A strange fellow! What? You entreat for them?'

'If your Excellence hangs every mother's son among them, what will it

profit me? They knew not what they did.'

The old man became thoughtful, then his face cleared, and his small

intelligent eyes shone with good nature.

'Hark ye, Messer Leonardo! There is one thing passes me. How could you

stand there stock-still, looking on? Why did you not complain to me? or

to Monseigneur de la Trémouille? He must have passed by within an hour!'

Leonardo looked down and reddened. 'I was not in time,' he stammered,

'I----I don't know Monsieur de la Trémouille.'

''Tis a misfortune,' said the old man; and surveying the ruin, he

exclaimed with great vehemence, 'I would have given a hundred of my best

troopers for your Colossus!'

On his way home, Leonardo crossed the bridge just under Bramante's

loggia, the scene of his last interview with the Duke. Pages and grooms

were chasing the swans which were so dear to Il Moro; and the poor

creatures unable to escape from the moat, fluttered and screamed in

agonies. The water was flecked with down and snowy feathers; here and

there on its blackness floated a white blood-stained body. One

newly-wounded bird stretched its graceful neck in the convulsions of

death, uttering piercing cries and flapping its weakening wings, as if

in a last vain effort for flight. Leonardo averted his eyes and hurried

away.

V

Louis XII. made his entry into the Lombard capital punctually on the 6th

of October. Great crowds assembled to see the procession; and the

newly-mended angels of the Milanese Commune waved their gilded wings to

the admiration of all.

Leonardo had not touched his flying-machine since the day of the

destruction of the _Cavallo_; but Astro still laboured at it

indefatigably, now and then looking reproachfully at the Master with his

one eye, in which blazed fires of zeal and hope.

One morning Pacioli came running with a message from the king, summoning

Messer Leonardo to the castle. The artist was unwilling to leave Astro,

for he had not confessed that the new apparatus was a failure, and he

feared lest the enthusiast should endanger his neck in some rash

experiment. However, he set forth, and presently arrived at the _Sala

della Rocchetta_ where Louis XII. was receiving the magistrates and

chief citizens of the city.

Leonardo looked at his new sovereign with attention, but discovered

nothing regal in his aspect. He was lean and feeble, with narrow

shoulders, a hollow chest, and a face curiously wrinkled. Evidently used

to suffering, it had conferred on him neither nobility nor grace; his

virtues were at best of the _bourgeois_ type.

A young man, twenty years of age, dressed simply in black, stood on the

first step of the throne. He wore no ornaments except a few pearls in

the looping of his hat, and the gold chain of the Order of St. Michael:

his face was pale, his flaxen hair was worn long, and he had dark blue

eyes, soft, but singularly penetrating and observant.

'Tell me, Fra Luca,' whispered Leonardo, 'who is that young noble?'

'Cæsar Borgia, the son of the pope, the Duke of Valentinois,' replied

the monk.

Leonardo was not ignorant of the crimes imputed to this young man. There

was little doubt that he had murdered his brother in order that,

exchanging the cardinal's purple for the title of _Gran Gonfaloniere_ of

the Roman Church, he might himself have the chief place in the family

honours. Further, the whisper ran, that the motive of the fratricide was

not ambition only, but a monstrous rivalry between the brothers for the

favour of their sister Lucrezia.

'That, at least, is impossible,' thought Leonardo, looking at the calm

face and clear soft eyes.

Cæsar probably felt Leonardo's scrutinising gaze, for he turned and

asked his secretary some question, pointing at the artist as he spoke.

The secretary, a man of venerable aspect, replied in a whisper, and

Cæsar in his turn looked intently at Leonardo, while a subtle smile

played upon his lips.

'Nay, it is not impossible,' thought the artist, answering his own hasty

judgment; 'anything is possible to that face; perhaps even worse than we

have heard.'

The spokesman of the town syndics, having finished the reading of a long

and tedious document, approached the throne and presented the parchment

to the king. Louis accidentally dropped it, and before the citizen could

pick it up, Cæsar had stooped dexterously and quickly, had lifted the

roll, and placed it in the king's hand.

'He never loses an opportunity,' grumbled some one standing near

Leonardo.

'You are right,' responded another; 'the pope's son understands the arts

of service. You should see him of a morning at the king's dressing! He

warms his shirt for him! I daresay he'd be ready even to wash out the

stable.'

Leonardo also had observed Cæsar's too obsequious action, which seemed

to him terrible rather than servile, like the caress of a wild beast;

but he was no longer permitted to play the part of a spectator, for

Pacioli dragged him forward and presented him to the king with a short

speech made up of superlatives--'_stupendissimo! prestantissimo!

invincibilissimo!_' and the like. Louis spoke at once of the

_Cenacolo_, praising the figures of the Apostles, and waxing

enthusiastic over the perspective of the roof. Fra Luca was quite sure

his Majesty had a post ready to offer to the great artist; but unluckily

at this moment a page brought in letters from France, and the king's

attention was engrossed by the news that his loved wife, Anne of

Brittany, had been delivered of a princess. The courtiers crowded round

with their congratulations, and Leonardo and Pacioli were pushed into

the background. Pacioli would again have dragged his friend forward, but

Leonardo objected, and presently left the palace.

On the drawbridge he was overtaken by Messer Agapito, Borgia's

secretary, who by command of his master offered him the post of

'_Ingegner ducale_' (chief engineer), which he had already filled under

Il Moro.

Leonardo said he would reply after a few days' reflection, and went on

towards his house.

Presently he saw a crowd of people, and hurried his steps with a

presentiment of disaster. The fear was well grounded; his pupils

Giovanni, Marco, Salaino, and Cesare, unable to procure a litter, were

carrying the unfortunate Astro on the broken wing of the new and

ill-fated flying-machine, his garments blood-stained and torn, his face

white as death. Leonardo guessed at once what had occurred. The smith,

great in resolution and in faith, had adventured on the machine. He had

fitted the apparatus to his shoulders, and leaped into the air. Then he

had fallen, and would probably have been killed had not one of the wings

caught in the boughs of a tree. Leonardo helped to carry the poor wretch

home; with his own hands he laid him on a bed and bent over him to

examine his hurts. Astro recovered from his swoon, and looking up with

supplicating eyes, murmured--

'O Master! Forgive!'

VI

Louis XII. celebrated the birth of his daughter with great feasts, and a

solemn thanksgiving mass was performed in the cathedral. The city was

quiet, and all seemed peaceful and prosperous. Having exacted an oath

of fealty from his new subjects, he appointed Marshal Trivulzio his

viceroy, and returned to France early in November.

The calm was, however, deceitful; Trivulzio soon made himself detested

by his cruelty and greed; the adherents of the banished Ludovico took

heart, and inflamed the people by liberal distribution of seditious

letters. Soon those who had sent Il Moro forth with objurgations and

jeers, proclaimed him the best and wisest of sovereigns.

Towards the end of January a crowd wrecked the offices of the

tax-collector beside the Porta Ticinese; next day there was rioting near

Pavia. The cause of the latter disturbance was an attempt made by a

French soldier on the chastity of a peasant girl, who struck her

assailant with a broom handle and was then threatened by him with an

axe. She screamed; her father ran up with a cudgel and was killed by the

soldier. Then the crowd fell upon the soldier and he was killed; after

which the French drew on the populace and sacked the village.

When the news of this outrage reached Milan it acted like a spark upon

gunpowder. The people poured into the squares, the streets, the

market-places, shouting 'Down with the king! Down with Trivulzio! Death

to the foreigners! _Viva Il Moro!_'

The French troops were too few to withstand attack from the three

hundred thousand inhabitants of Milan. Trivulzio placed guns upon the

tower which for the present was in use as the cathedral belfry, but

before giving the order to fire on the crowd he tried one more effort at

pacification. He was hustled, hunted into the Palazzo del Comune, and

would have perished there but for the timely intervention of the Swiss

mercenaries. Then ensued burning and pillaging; torture and murder of

all foreigners and their sympathisers who fell into the hands of the

citizens. On the 1st of February Trivulzio fled, leaving the fortress in

charge of the Captains d'Espe and Codecara. That very night Il Moro

returned from Germany, and was received with great joy by the town of

Como; all Milan anxiously awaited him as its saviour.

In these last days of the revolt, when the streets were being wrecked on

all sides by the cannonade, Leonardo transferred his household to the

ample cellars of his house, contriving living-rooms of tolerable

comfort, and storing everything of value: pictures, drawings,

manuscripts, scientific instruments.

He had definitely resolved to enter Cæsar Borgia's service, and was to

present himself in Romagna not later than the summer of 1500; meanwhile

he proposed to visit his friend, Girolamo Melzi, at his villa of Vaprio

in the vicinity of Milan, living there in retirement till the

disturbances were at an end. On the morning of February the 2nd, the

Feast of the Purification, Fra Luca brought him the tidings that the

castle had been flooded. A Milanese, Luigi da Porto, who had been in

Trivulzio's service, had deserted to the rebels, first opening all the

sluices which fed the moats of the fortress. The water spread over the

circumjacent lands, reaching to the walls of the Rocchetta; and, making

its way into the magazine and provision stores, almost forced the French

to surrender, which was precisely what Messer Luigi had hoped. The flood

had also overflowed the canal, had inundated the low lying suburb of

Porta Vercellina, where was situated the Monastery delle Grazie. Fra

Luca expressed grave fears for Leonardo's _Cenacolo_ and offered to go

with him and see how it fared.

The painter, feigning indifference, replied that he was too busy, and

that he believed the height of the fresco would preserve it from injury.

No sooner, however, was he rid of Pacioli than he hastened to the

convent refectory, on the brick floor of which pools were still left,

and where there was a pervading odour of miasma and stagnant water. A

monk told him that the flood had risen to the fourth of a cubit.

The _Cenacolo_ had not been painted in water-colours, according to the

usage for fresco; such process requiring a rapidity of execution alien

to Leonardo's genius.

'A painter who has no doubts will have small success,' he used to say;

and for his doubts, his vacillations, his experiments, corrections, and

extreme slowness, only the medium of oil was suitable. It was in vain

that experienced masters told him that oil paints were impossible for a

damp wall standing on the verge of a marsh. His love of experiment, and

of new paths and devices induced him to disregard all warnings; he mixed

his paints in a special way, and prepared the wall by coating it first

with clay, varnished and oiled, then with a mixture of mastic, pitch and

plaster.

Having dismissed the monk, Leonardo crossed the still soaking refectory

floor, and stepped close to examine his picture. The transparent and

delicate colours seemed uninjured, and not even blurred; however he took

a magnifying-glass and explored the surface in every part. To his

dismay, there in the left-hand corner, just where the tablecloth was

represented hanging in ample folds by the feet of St Bartholomew, he

discovered a small crack; beside it the colours were already fading, and

on the surface was a white velvety patch, scarce observable, but the

beginning of mould. Sudden paleness overspread Leonardo's features; he

composed himself, however, and continued his examination with minuter

care. Very soon he realised what had happened. The first coating of

varnished clay had bulged in consequence of the damp and had come away

from the wall, raising the upper coating of plaster which carried the

paint; and in the plaster tiny almost invisible cracks had formed,

through which a salt sweat exuded from the porous brickwork. The

_Cenacolo_ was doomed. The colours might last forty or fifty years and

Leonardo himself never see their decay, but it was impossible to doubt

that this his greatest work must irretrievably perish. He stood looking

at the face of his Christ; realising for the first time how dear to him

was this, his supreme creation.

The ruin of the _Cenacolo_, the destruction of the _Cavallo_, snapped

the last threads which bound him to men, which united him to friends

perhaps still unborn. His soul had long been solitary; now his solitude

was deeper than before. The clay of the Colossus, resolved into dust,

was the sport of the winds of heaven; mould was gathering on the very

countenance of the Lord, dimming its outline, blurring and fading its

colours. All that had been his very life was vanishing as a shadow.

He came away, leaving the monastery without speaking to any one; made

his way to his deserted house, and descended to the place of refuge

underground. He passed through the room where lay the unfortunate Astro,

and stopped for a moment to speak to Giovanni who was preparing a

compress for the sick man's brow.

'Fever again?' asked the Master.

'Yes; he is delirious.'

Leonardo watched the bandaging, and listened for a few minutes to the

rapid disconnected babble which came from the lips of the poor broken

enthusiast.

'Higher! Higher! Straight to the sun--so long as the wings don't catch

fire! Ha! little one! who are you? What is your name? Mechanics? That is

a scurvy name! I never heard of a devil named Mechanics! What are you

jeering at? Is it a joke? That's enough now; you have had your joke, and

I've done with you. Ah!--Lift me! Lift me! I can bear no more! Let me

just get my breath. Oh--death and damnation!' His face was anguished;

cries of terror burst from his lips; he fancied himself falling into the

abyss. But this passed and the rapid babbling recommenced.

'No, no! mock not! The fault was mine own. He told me they were not

ready. Ay, he said so. I have betrayed the Master! I have betrayed the

Master! Hush! Hush! O yes, I know him! the smallest and the heaviest of

all the devils--the little one named Mechanics.'

Leonardo, leaning over the bed, could not avert his gaze. He was

thinking--

'Here is another man whom I have destroyed.'

He laid his hand on Astro's burning forehead. It appeared to calm him,

little by little he became quieter, and presently he sank into heavy

sleep. Leonardo retired to his underground cell, and buried himself in

his calculations. He was now studying the laws of the wind, and the

aerial currents, and comparing them with the laws of the waves and

currents of the sea--all still with reference to this question of

flight.

'If you throw two stones of equal size into a pool, at a little distance

from each other,'--he said slowly to himself--'two widening circles will

be formed on the surface of the water. Then will come a moment in which

the first circle will meet the second; will it enter and bisect it? or

will the waves be refracted at their point of contact? I answer, taking

my stand on experience: the two circles will intersect each other,

remaining, however, distinct and keeping their respective centres at the

points where the stones fell.'

The simplicity with which nature had solved this mechanical problem

filled him with enthusiasm: 'How subtle is this! How beautiful!'

He made a calculation, and the result added to his conviction that the

mathematical sciences, with their laws founded on the essential

necessities of reason, justified the natural necessities of mechanics.

Hour after hour flew by unnoticed, and evening came on. After supper,

and relaxation in talk with his pupils, he again set to work. The acumen

and lucidity of his thoughts convinced him that he was on the verge of

some great discovery.

'Behold how the wind, blowing across the fields, drives waves over the

rye, one succeeding the other, while the stalks, though they bend,

remain fixed in the ground! In like manner do the waves run over the

immovable water. The ripple caused by the throwing of a stone, or by the

force of the wind, should rather be called a shiver than a movement of

the water. And of this you may persuade yourself by throwing a straw

into the widening rings of wavelets, and watching how it rises and

falls, but does not leave its place.'

This experiment with the straw reminded him of a similar test which he

had applied when studying the waves of sound. He mused--

'The striking of a bell will induce a slight quiver and a low resonance

in a neighbouring bell; a note sounded on a lute will awake the same

note in a lute by its side; and a straw laid upon the string which

produces that note will show its vibration.'

The soul of the student was greatly stirred; he divined some connection,

a whole world of undiscovered knowledge, between the two oscillating

straws; the one trembling on the surface of the waves, the other

quivering on the vibrating string. And an idea, swift as lightning,

flashed across his mind.

'The mechanical law is the same in the two cases! Like the waves on the

water when a stone drops into it, so the waves of sound widen in the

air, intersecting others, but not mingling with them, keeping their own

centre in the place of their origin. What, then, of light? As an echo is

the reproduction of a sound, the reflection in a mirror is an echo of

light. There is but one mechanical law in all the phenomena of physical

force; there is but one will; and this will is thy justice, O Prime

Mover! the angle of incidence must be equal to the angle of reflection.'

His face pale, his eyes burning with enthusiasm, Leonardo felt that once

again, and this time more certainly than before, he was about to sound

an abyss into which no man had looked before. He knew that this

discovery, if confirmed by experiment, was the greatest mechanical

discovery since the days of Archimedes. Two months ago, when he had

heard that Vasco di Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope and

discovered a new route to India, Leonardo had envied him, but now he had

made a greater discovery than di Gama or Columbus; he had sighted more

mysterious expanses, and no less than they had found a new heaven and a

new earth.

But through the wall there reached his ears the groans and the ravings

of the sufferer. He listened, and remembered his mechanics, the

senseless destruction of the Colossus, the inevitable ruin of the

_Cenacolo_, Astro's foolish and horrible fall; and asked himself:--

'Will this discovery be lost as completely, as ignominiously as all else

which I have done? Will no man heed my voice? shall I ever be solitary

as now? here alone in the darkness, underground, as if buried alive? I

who have dreamed of wings!' After a short pause, he added: 'Be it so!

Darkness, and silence, and oblivion, and none to know what I have done!

_I_ know it!'

And indomitable pride, a sense of inalienable victory and strength

filled his soul, as if the wings to which he had aspired were already

lifting him above the earth.

The subterranean chamber suddenly became too strait for him; he felt

stifled, and the longing was irresistible to behold the sky, and the

open country. He left the house, and walked swiftly towards the

cathedral.

VIII

The night was moonlit, serene, and warm; from the conflagration sullen

flames still glowed, and smoky spirals still rose into the sky.

The crowd increased as he drew nearer to the centre of the town. The

blue rays of the moon, the scarlet glare of the torches, illuminated

faces haggard with excitement, seamed with anxiety, and played on the

white banner with the scarlet cross which had been used by the ancient

Milanese Commune, on lantern-poles, arquebuses, pistols, clubs,

halberts, scythes, pitchforks, stakes, all pressed into service against

the foreigner. The people swarmed like ants, the tocsin pealed, the

guns roared. From the fortress the French were firing down the street,

and their boast was that they would not leave one stone upon another

within the city walls. Louder than the bells, more piercing than the

booming of the cannon, rose the incessant yell of the citizens: 'Death

to the French! Death to the foreigners! Down with the king! _Viva Il

Moro!_'

To Leonardo it gave the impression of a wild and hideous dream. Near the

eastern gate, a drummer from Picardy, a boy of sixteen, was being

hanged, Mascarello the goldsmith playing the part of executioner.

Flinging the rope round the lad's neck, and tapping him lightly on the

head, he cried with ribald solemnity:--

'In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, we dub this

servant of God, this Frenchman, Saltamacchia, Knight of the Hempen

Necklace.'

'Amen!' responded the crowd.

The little drummer, ill understanding his danger, half smiling, blinking

his eyes like a child about to cry, shrank into himself, twisting his

neck that he might ease the noose. Then suddenly, as if awaking from a

lethargy, he turned his beautiful but white and trembling face to the

crowd, and would have attempted entreaty. His voice was drowned by howls

and derisive laughter, and he gave up the attempt, holding his peace

with the forlorn air of a resigned and innocent victim, and kissing a

little cross, the gift of his mother or sister, which he had worn on a

blue ribbon round his neck. Then Mascarello swung him into the void,

with the jeer: 'Courage, Knight of the Necklace! Show us how you dance

the French _gaillard_!'

And, mid the laughter of the crowd, the child's body shuddered horribly,

and was convulsed in the spasms of death, as if indeed it were dancing.

Leonardo walked on, and presently he saw a woman, dressed in rags,

kneeling before a miserable half-ruined hovel, and stretching out thin

bare arms to the passers-by.

'Help; Help! Help!' she cried incessantly.

Corbolo the shoemaker, running up, asked what ailed her.

'My baby! My baby! He was sleeping, so pretty in his little bed! He has

fallen through the floor! Perhaps he is still alive! Oh, save him! Try

and save him! _Help!_'

Just then a cannon-ball, rending the air with a shriek, struck the roof

of the hovel. The beams cracked, dust rose in a column, the roof fell,

the walls crumbled, and the woman was for ever silenced.

Again Leonardo moved on, and presently he reached the Palazzo del

Comune. Here, in front of the Loggia degli Osii, an university student

was haranguing the crowd, descanting on the ancient glory of the

Milanese, and exhorting the people to annihilate all tyrants, and

establish the reign of equality. His hearers, however, seemed hard of

persuasion.

'Citizens!' he cried, brandishing the knife which on ordinary occasions

served him for mending pens, slicing sausages, and cutting his

sweetheart's name on the bark of trees, but which now he had christened

'the Poniard of Nemesis,' 'Citizens! the hour has come in which we must

die for Liberty! We will wash our hands in the blood of the tyrants; in

their breasts we will plunge this Poniard of Nemesis. _Viva la

Repubblica!_'

'Folly!' cried voices from the audience. 'We know the wine of your

vintage! We know the liberty you would give us, you spy, traitor, dog of

a Frenchman! To the devil with you and your republic! _Viva Il Moro!_

Death to all enemies of the duke!'

The orator continued to prate, enforcing his doctrine by instances from

Cicero and Tacitus, but the mob overthrew his bench, knocked him down

and beat him, shouting:--

'Here's for your Liberty! Here's for your Republic! Here's for inflaming

fools against their legitimate ruler!'

Leonardo stood for a minute in the Piazza dell' Arengo to admire the

imposing pile of the cathedral--that marble forest of pinnacles and

towers, fantastic in the double light, blue rays of the moon and crimson

flare of torches. In front of the archbishop's palace the press was so

great that there was scarce standing-room, and from the centre of the

throng came groans and ferocious howls.

'What has happened?' asked the painter of an old workman, whose gentle

dignified face was blanched with horror.

'Who can understand? They themselves know neither what they want nor

what they do. They are accusing Messer Jacopo Crotta of selling poisoned

flour, and of being a French spy! _O Dio! Dio!_ It is a lie! But they

fall on the first man they meet, and listen to none! 'Tis horrible,

'tis most horrible! Lord Jesus, have mercy on us, wretched sinners!'

Just then Gorgoglio the glass-blower detached himself from the dense

pack of human bodies, holding aloft a bloody human head stuck on a pole;

and Farfannicchio, the madcap of the streets, danced round it, screaming

and yelling.

'Down with the traitors! down with the foreigners! Death to the devils

of Frenchmen!'

'_A furore populi, libera nos, Domine!_' murmured the old workman,

crossing himself.

From the castle came an incessant sound of trumpets, drums, explosions

of cannon, crackling of guns, cries of soldiers. The monster bombard,

called by the French _Margot la Folle_, and by the Germans _die tolle

Grete_, was fired; the earth shook, it seemed that the whole town must

crash into ruins. The bomb fell beyond the Borgonuovo, and set fire to a

house; pillars of flame rose into the quiet moonlit sky, and the piazza

was lit with a crimson glare. The people hurried hither and thither,

jostling, pushing, trampling each other like black shadows, like living

phantoms.

Leonardo stood watching the wild scene, noting every detail, his mind

preoccupied. The fiery glow, the voices of the crowd, the pealing of the

bells, the boom of the guns, all brought back his discovery. Imagination

pictured the waves of sound, the waves of light swelling tranquilly,

circling outwards like the ripple on water where a stone has fallen,

intersecting each other without mingling or confusion, each keeping its

own centre in the point of its origin. Great gladness filled his soul as

he thought that never at any time could men interrupt the harmonious

play of these ordered waves, nor the mechanical law which rules them,

the unchanging fiat of their creator, the rule of divine justice, making

the angle of incidence equal to the angle of reflection.

In his soul re-echoed--

'O wondrous justice of thee, thou Prime Mover! No force hast thou

permitted to lack the order and the quality of its necessary effect!'

In the frenzied crowd, the soul of the artist preserved the eternal calm

of contemplation; even as the blue rays of the moon shone with heavenly

effulgence supreme over glare of torches and flames of conflagration and

war.

* * * * *

On a certain morning in February 1500, Ludovico Sforza, Il Moro,

re-entered Milan by the Porta Nuova. Leonardo had started the previous

night for Vaprio, his friend Melzi's villa.

IX

Girolamo Melzi had once belonged to the court of the Sforzas, but on the

death of his young wife in 1494 he had retired to his lonely villa at

the foot of the Alps, a few hours' journey from Milan. Far from the

noise of the world, he lived the life of a philosopher, gardening with

his own hands, and devoting himself to music and to the study of the

occult sciences. Some said he was an adept in black magic, accustomed to

call up the shade of his lost wife from the lower world. The

mathematician, Fra Luca Pacioli, and Sacrobosco, the alchemist, often

visited him, and whole nights were spent in argument about Plato's

ideas, and the laws of the Pythagorean numbers which governed the music

of the spheres. But Melzi found his chief pleasure in the visits of

Leonardo, which were not infrequent, as the works on the Martesana Canal

often brought him to the vicinity.

Vaprio was situated on the left bank of the Adda; and the canal,

skirting the villa garden, ran for a certain distance parallel to the

river, the course of which was just here obstructed by rapids. All day

the roar of the cataract made itself heard, loud as the billows of the

sea surf. Free, wild, storm-tossed, untamed by man, the Adda hurled its

green waves between winding precipitous banks of yellow sandstone. By

its side, the same cold, green, mountain water swam noiselessly by

within the straight-drawn confines of the canal; smooth as a mirror,

calm, slow, submissive and subdued. The contrast delighted Leonardo, and

seemed to him of pregnant meaning. Which of the two streams was the more

beautiful--the Martesana, his own creation, the work of human

intelligence and will, or its elder sister, the foaming Adda, savage,

threatening, superb in its untrammelled freedom? He understood each,

sympathised with each, and loved them with equal love.

From the upper terrace of the villa garden was a wide prospect of the

immense Lombard plain, one vast and smiling garden. In the summer the

fields were rank with verdure; hay scented the air; the wheat and the

maize grew so tall as to overtop the vines; ears of corn kissed the

pears and the apples, the cherries and the plums. The hills of Como rose

dark towards the north; above them towered the first spurs of the Alps;

higher still the snow-clad summits glowed in the sunset gold.

Fra Luca and Messer Galeotto Sacrobosco, whose cottage by the Porta

Vercellina had been destroyed by the French, were both at the villa when

Leonardo arrived; but he kept himself apart, preferring solitude. He

conceived, however, a great fondness for the company of Francesco, his

host's little son.

Timid and shy as a girl, the boy at first stood in great awe of the

painter; one day, however, he came into his room at a moment when

Leonardo, studying the laws of colour, was experimenting with coloured

glass. He pleased the child by letting him look through the different

pieces, yellow, blue, purple, or green, which gave a fairy aspect to

familiar objects, and made the world seem now smiling, now frowning,

according to the colour of the glass. Another of Leonardo's inventions

proved very attractive. This was the 'Camera obscura,' by means of which

living pictures appeared on a sheet of white paper; and Francesco saw

the turning of the mill-wheel, the swallows circling round the church,

the woodcutter's grey donkey with his load of faggots stepping daintily

along the miry road while the poplars bowed their heads under the

breeze. Still more fascinating was the weather-gauge: a copper ring, a

small stick like the beam of a balance, and two little balls, the one

covered with wax, the other with wadding. When the air was saturated

with moisture the wadding grew heavy, and the little ball, falling down,

inclined the beam till it touched one or other of the divisions marked

on the copper ring. The degree of damp could thus be accurately

measured, and the weather predicted for two or three days. The little

boy constructed a similar apparatus for himself and was jubilant when

the prophecies were fulfilled which he had deduced from its variations.

Francesco went to the village school where he was taught by the old

prior of the neighbour convent. The dog-eared Latin grammar and

arithmetic primer were odious to him, and he learned but slackly.

Leonardo's lore was of a new sort, pleasant to the child as a fairy

tale. The instruments for the study of optics, acoustics, hydraulics,

were to him new and magical toys, nor was he ever tired of hearing the

painter's talk. Fearing ridicule or suspicion, Leonardo spoke but

cautiously with adults; to Francesco he talked with the utmost frankness

and simplicity. He not only taught the child, but learned of him.

Paraphrasing the text of Holy Writ, he told himself--'Except ye be

converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the

kingdom of knowledge.'

It was at this time that he was writing his _Book of the Stars_. On

March evenings, when in the still chilly air there was a waft of spring,

he would stand on the roof with Francesco, watching the tide of stars

and sketching the spots on the face of the moon. Then rolling a piece of

paper into an inverted cone, he bade the child look through the aperture

at the end, and Francesco saw the stars robbed of their rays, and like

bright, round, infinitely minute globules.

'Those globules,' said Leonardo, 'are of great size, many of them a

hundred, nay, a thousand times larger than our earth, which, however, is

not less beautiful nor more contemptible than they. The mechanical laws

which obtain in our world, and which have been discovered by human

sagacity, guide also those stars and suns.'

'What is there beyond the stars?' murmured the child.

'More stars, Francesco; worlds which we cannot see.'

'And beyond those?'

'Yet others.'

'But at the end, at the very end?'

'There is no end.'

'No end,' cried the boy, and Leonardo felt the trembling of the little

hand within his own. The child's face had grown pale.

'Then where--where,' he said slowly, 'where is Paradise, Messer

Leonardo, and the angels, and the saints, and the Madonna, and God the

Father who sits upon the throne with God the Son and the Holy Spirit?'

The teacher would have liked to answer that God was everywhere; in the

grain of sand no less than in the celestial globe; in the hearts of men

no less than in the outside universe. But fearing to disturb the simple

faith of the little one he held his peace.

With the first budding of the trees, the painter and the child spent

whole days together in the garden or in the neighbouring woods watching

the reviving of life in the vegetable world. Sometimes Leonardo would

draw a flower or tree, trying to seize the living likeness as in the

portrait of a man; that unique particular aspect of his model which

would never be repeated. He taught Francesco how the rings seen in the

wood of the trunk reveal the age of the tree; and how the thickness of

each ring shows the amount of moisture in the year when it was formed;

how the core of the trunk is always on the southern side, which has had

the most of the sun's heat. He told how in the spring-time the sap,

gathering between the inner green of the trunk and the outer bark,

thickens and expands and bursts the bark; how, if a branch is cut, the

vital power draws an abundance of nutritive juices to the wounded place,

so that the bark thickens and the wound is healed; yet its mark remains

because the abundance of the nutritive juices has been too great, and

has overflowed and made lumps and knots. Always he spoke of nature dryly

and with apparent frigidity, seeking only scientific accuracy. With

passionless exactitude he defined the tender details of the action of

the spring upon the life of plants, as he would have spoken of the

performance of a machine. He showed from abstract mathematics the

wonderful laws which shape the needles of pine-trees and the facets of

crystals. Yet for all his coldness and impartiality, the child discerned

his love for all living things, for the withered leaf no less than for

the mighty boughs which spread suppliant arms to their great lord, the

sun. At times, in the depth of the forest, he would pause and note

smilingly how under last year's withered leaves still hanging on the

branches, green shoots were sprouting to oust them from their place; how

the bee, weak from her winter torpor, could scarce crawl into the

snowdrop's cup. In the great stillness Francesco could hear the beating

of his friend's iron heart; timidly he would raise his eyes to the

Master. The sun shining athwart the branches lit up his long curling

hair, flowing beard, and overhanging brows, and surrounded his head with

a halo: he seemed like Pan himself who listens to the growing of the

grass, the murmuring of spring below the earth, the mystical forces of

awakening life. To Leonardo all things lived. The world was one great

body, like the body of man, who himself is a little world. In the

dewdrops he saw the similitude of the watery sphere which surrounds the

earth. The cataracts of the Adda near Trezzo gave him occasion to study

the cascades and whirlpools of rivers which he compared to the twisting

of a woman's curls. Mysterious resemblances attracted him, concords in

nature's harmony like voices answering each other from distant worlds.

Inquiring into the origin of the rainbow, he noted that the same

prismatic colour is seen in the plumage of birds, precious stones, in

the scum on stagnant water, in old dulled glass. In the patterns on

frosted window-panes, he found a resemblance to living leaves and

flowers, as if nature in this world of frozen crystal had seen prophetic

visions of the coming spring. At times he felt himself drawing near new

realms of knowledge, perhaps to be entered only by men of ages to come.

He used to say about the attractive powers of amber:--

'I see not the mode by which the human mind shall apprehend the mystery.

These powers of the magnet and the amber are among those occult forces

which are as yet unrevealed.'

And further--

'The world is full of countless possibilities of which yet there has

been no experience.'

One day, a certain Messer Guidotto Prestinari, a poet from Bergamo, came

to the villa. Offended with Leonardo, who did not sufficiently praise

his verses, he began a discussion on the comparative excellence of

poetry and painting. Leonardo spoke little, but the fury with which

Messer Guidotto assailed his art at last amused him and he said, half

jesting:--

'Painting is higher than poetry, inasmuch as it reproduces the eternal

works of God and not human inventions, to which the poets, at least of

our day, are too apt to confine themselves. They depict not, but

describe, borrowing all they have and trading with each other's wares.

They but put together and combine the refuse of knowledge. They may be

compared to the receivers of stolen goods....'

Fra Luca, Messer Galeotto, and Melzi himself cried out; but Leonardo had

now warmed to the subject and cried:--

'The eye gives a more complete knowledge of nature than the ear! Things

seen are less to be doubted than things heard. Painting, which is silent

poetry, comes nearer to positive science than poetry, which is invisible

painting. Words give but a series of isolated images following one

another; but in a picture, all the forms, all the colours appear

synchronously, and are blended into a whole, like the notes of a chord

in music; and thus both to painting and to music a more complex harmony

is possible than to poetry. And the richer the harmony, the richer is

that delight which is the aim and the enchantment of art. Question, say,

any lover, whether he would not rather have a portrait of his loved one

than a description in words of her countenance, though it were composed

by the greatest of poets?'

This argument provoked a smile, and presently Leonardo continued:--

'Hear a narrative from my own experience. A certain Florentine youth

fell into such a longing for the face of a woman whom I had painted in

one of my sacred pictures, that, having bought it, he cancelled all the

signs of its religious character, so that he might kiss his adored one

without fear or scruple. But soon the voice of conscience overcame the

passion of love, nor could he recover his tranquillity of mind till he

had removed the picture from his dwelling. Think ye, O poets, that with

your words you could rouse a man to like vehemence of desire? Believe

me, Messeri, I speak not of myself, for I know how greatly I fall short,

but of that painter who attains to the perfection of his art. He is no

longer a man; rapt in the contemplation of divine and eternal beauty, or

turned to the study of monstrous forms, grotesque, pathetic, terrible,

he can comprehend and give shape to all; he is a sovereign--a god.'

Many such ideas Leonardo had inscribed in his note-books; and Fra Luca

urged him to order his manuscripts and give them to the public. He even

offered to find him an editor. Leonardo, however, refused, and remained

firm in his resolution that he would publish nothing. Yet all his

writings were couched in the form of address to a reader; and at the

commencement of one of his diaries he apologised in these words for the

disconnected style and frequent repetitions:--

'Blame me not, O reader, for the subjects are numberless and my memory

is weak, and I write at long intervals in different years.'

XI

In the last days of March disquieting tidings reached the Villa Melzi.

The French army, led by Monsieur de la Trémouille, had crossed the Alps

and was descending for the reconquest of Milan. Il Moro, suspicious of

all, and oppressed by superstitious fears, dared not meet the enemy in

the open field, and daily showed himself _più pauroso d'una

donniccuola_, 'more panic-stricken than a silly girl.'

But at the villa news of the great world seemed but a faint and far off

hum. Careless of duke and king, Leonardo roamed the neighbouring hills

and glens and woods, accompanied only by the little Francesco. Sometimes

they ascended the river to its source among the pine-clad mountains; and

there they hired workmen and made excavations, seeking fossil shells and

plants.

One evening, wearied by a long day's march, they rested under an old

lime-tree, overhanging the steep bank of the Adda. The unbounded plain,

with its long rows of wayside poplars, lay stretched at their feet. The

white houses of Bergamo shone in the evening sunlight: the snowy

mountain-tops seemed to float in the air. All the sky was clear, save

that in the far distance, almost on the horizon, between Treviglio,

Brignano, and Castel Rozzone, there suddenly appeared a light cloud of

smoke.

'What is it?' asked Francesco.

'I know not. It may be a battle. I see what may be fire, and think I

hear the sound of cannon. It may be a skirmish between our folk and the

French.'

Latterly, such chance encounters had not been infrequent. They watched

the cloud silently for a few minutes, then turned their attention to the

fruit of their day's digging. The master picked up a large bone, sharp

as a needle, the fin of some primeval fish.

'How many kings, how many nations has not time destroyed since this

creature fell on its sleep in that great cavern, where to-day we have

found it? How many thousands of years has the world seen, what changes

have taken place, while it was lying hid, concealed from all eyes,

supporting heavy masses of earth with its bare skeleton?'

He made a large gesture with his hand, as if to embrace the verdant

plain stretched at their feet; then continued:--

'All that you see, Francesco, was once the bed of an ocean which covered

the chief parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia; the summits of the

Apennines were islands in a great sea, and fishes swam in these fields

of singing birds.'

He interrupted himself, and they looked once more at the distant

smoke-drift, and the flashes of fire from the cannon, so insignificant

in the boundless expanse, which lay all peaceful and rose-tinted in the

sunset glow. It was hard to believe that a fight was taking place, and

that men were killing each other almost within range of their eyesight.

More vivid to Francesco were the birds flying to roost, the fish of that

forgotten sea. Neither spoke, but at that moment the painter and the

child had the same thought:--

''Tis a small matter whether the Lombards prevail or the Frenchmen;

Ludovico the duke, or Louis the foreign king; our own people or the

strangers. Country, glory, war, the strife of policy, the fall of

thrones, the upheaval of nations, all that to man seems great or

terrible--all are no more than yonder little cloud of smoke, melting

into the peaceful twilight, dissolving in the immutable serenity of

Nature.'

XII

It was at Vaprio that Leonardo finished a picture begun long ago at

Florence. In a cavern, surrounded by great rocks, the Mother of God was

folding one arm round the infant John the Baptist, with the other

clasping her Son, as if she desired to unite the Human and the Divine in

the indissoluble embrace of a single love. John, devoutly joining his

little hands, bent his knee before Jesus, who blessed him with two

fingers raised. The attitude of the infant Saviour, sitting naked on the

naked earth, one plump dimpled leg tucked under the other, while he

leaned on a plump hand, all its fingers outspread upon the

sand--suggested the baby still unable to walk; yet already on his face,

perfect wisdom was blent with the simplicity of infancy. A kneeling

angel supporting the little Jesus, and pointing at the Precursor, turned

to the spectator a face instinct with mournful foreboding, yet illumined

by a strange and tender smile. Behind the rocks a pale sun shone through

drizzling rain, and blue mountains rose into the sky, their sharp peaks

weird and unearthly; the rocks, smoothed and polished as if by the

action of salt water, suggested some dried-up ocean bed; and in the

cavern was most profound shadow, almost concealing a bubbling spring,

leaves of water-plants, pale dim cups of purple iris-flowers. One could

fancy slow tricklings and droppings from the overhanging arch of black

dolomite; and the creeping weeds and grasses were heavy with the

continuous ooze of the ground and the damp saturation of the air. The

face of the Madonna alone shone with the delicate brilliance of

alabaster within which glows a light. Queen of Heaven, she was shown to

men in the gloom of twilight, in a subterranean cavern, in the most

secret of the recesses of nature, perhaps the last refuge of ancient Pan

and the wood nymphs--she, the mystery of mysteries, the mother of the

God-man, in the very bosom of mother earth.

It was the creation at once of a great artist and of a great student;

the play of light and of shadow, the laws of vegetable life, the anatomy

of the human body, the science of drapery, the spirals of a woman's

curls (which he had compared to the circling of a whirlpool), all that

the natural philosopher had searched into with 'unrelenting severity,'

had measured with mathematical accuracy, had dissected as one dissects a

corpse--all this the artist had recombined into a new creation, living

beauty, a silent melody; into a mystic hymn to the Holy Virgin, the

Mother of God. With knowledge equalled by love he had depicted the veins

in the iris petals, the dimples in the baby's elbow, the ancient cleft

in the dolomite rock, the quiver of the water in the secret spring; the

quiver of infinite grief in the angel's smile. He knew all and loved

all. Great love is the daughter of great knowledge.

XIII

One day the alchemist, Messer Galeotto Sacrobosco, undertook to

experiment with the 'Rod of Mercury,' under which name were known all

those staves of myrtle, almond, tamarind, or other 'astrological' woods,

which were supposed to have a kinship with metals, and the property of

discovering veins of gold, silver, and copper in the rocks. Accompanied

by Messer Gerolamo, he went to the east side of the lake of Lecco, known

to be rich in ores; and Leonardo joined the company, though he had no

faith in the 'Rod of Mercury,' and mocked at it no less than at the

other delusions of the alchemists.

Near the village of Mandello, at the foot of Monte Campione, there was

an abandoned iron mine. Some years before the ground had fallen in and

buried a number of the miners; and it was reported that sulphurous

exhalations rose from a rent in the lowest depths of the mine, into

which, if a stone were thrown, it fell, and fell, and fell, but was

never heard to strike the bottom, for the sufficient reason that the pit

was bottomless. Leonardo's curiosity was excited by these tales, and he

determined to explore the mine while his companions were busied with the

magic rod. Not without difficulty, for the peasants believed the mine to

be the dwelling-place of a devil, he obtained the services of an old man

as guide. A subterranean passage, very steep and dark, and with broken

and slippery stairs, led to the central shaft. The guide walked stolidly

in front with a lantern, and Leonardo followed, carrying Francesco, who

had insisted on accompanying his friend. They descended more than two

hundred steps, and were still going down, the passage becoming ever

narrower and more steep. A stifling smell of subterranean damp assailed

the nostrils. Leonardo struck the wall with a spade, listened to the

sound it made, and examined the piece of rock he had detached, the

nature and layers of the soil, and the bright mica sparkling in the

veins of granite.

He felt the child clinging to him very tightly, and he asked with a

smile whether his little comrade were afraid.

'With you, I am never afraid,' said Francesco; presently he added shyly,

'is it true what my _babbo_ says, that you are going to leave us?'

'Yes, Francesco.'

'Where are you going?'

'To Romagna; to the Duke Valentino.'

'Is it very far?'

'Several days' journey.'

'Several days!' sighed Francesco; 'then shall we never see you again?'

'Why not? The first minute I can, I will come and see you.'

The boy became thoughtful. Squeezing Leonardo's neck tightly with his

two arms, he cried:--

'Take me with you! Oh, Messer Leonardo, take me with you.'

'Alack, my child! How is it possible? There is war there.'

'I don't care for the war. Have I not said that with you I am never

afraid? Even if it be more fearsome than it is in this place where we

are now, I shall not be afraid. I will be your servant, brush your

clothes, carry hay to your horses; and I will seek shells for you, and

make you drawings of leaves. Did you not say to me I drew them well? I

will do everything like a man. I will obey you in whatever you command.

Take me with you, Messer Leonardo!'

'And how about Messer Gerolamo? Would he consent?'

'He will consent if I cry for it. And if he doesn't consent, then I will

run away. Say you will take me with you! Say it!'

'No, Francesco; it is idle talk. I know thou would'st not leave thy

father. He grows old, and thou must have a fondness for him.'

'Of a surety I have a fondness for him. But for you, too, Messer

Leonardo! You think me very little, but truly I comprehend everything.

Aunt Bona says you are a sorcerer, and Don Lorenzo, my schoolmaster,

says it likewise, and that you are wicked, and that with you I shall

lose my soul. But when he speaks ill of you, I answer him in such wise

that he comes near beating me.'

Suddenly Francesco's eyes filled and the corners of his lips drooped.

'I understand,' he said; 'I understand why you don't want me. You don't

love me. And I----.' He burst into tears.

'Hush! hush! Thou should'st cry shame to weep! Hearken to what I tell

thee. In a few years, when thou art grown, then I will take thee for my

disciple, and keep thee always at my side.'

The child raised his eyes, tears still trembling on their long lashes.

'But do you mean it? or is it said to comfort me, and afterwards will

you forget?'

'No, Francesco, I promise.'

'You promise? And how long must I wait?'

'Eight or nine years; till thou art at the least fifteen.'

'Eight years,' sighed the child, reckoning on his fingers 'and I shall

be always with you?'

'Unless we die.'

'Eight years! Well, if you say it, it is certain.'

Francesco smiled, and rubbed his cheek against Leonardo's with a pretty

gesture peculiar to himself.

'Messer Leonardo, once I dreamed I was in the dark, going down a long,

long stair like this one, only it had no beginning and no end. But I was

not frightened, for some one was carrying me. I thought it was my

mother, who died ere ever I saw her; but now I know it was you. I am as

happy with you as if I was with her.'

Leonardo looked at the child with inexpressible tenderness. The innocent

eyes shone; he put out his bright lips as confidingly as to a mother,

and when Leonardo kissed them he felt the child was giving him his soul.

Thus, with the little heart beating against his own, he descended with

firm steps into the subterranean night.

XIV

Upon their return to Vaprio they found alarm in the villa; the French

were approaching. Louis, furious at the revolt of the Milanese, had

given their city over to pillage. Many of the inhabitants fled to the

mountains. Along the road was an endless procession of carts laden with

household stuff, and of weeping women dragging children by the hand. At

night, from the top windows of the villa, flames were still seen

citywards. At Novara a battle was daily expected which should decide the

fate of Lombardy.

At last Fra Luca brought news of the sad event which had ended the war.

The battle was ordered on the 10th of April, but when the duke was

reviewing his forces, prior to its commencement, the Swiss mercenaries

refused to advance, for they had been secretly bought by Trivulzio. In

vain Il Moro conjured them with tears not to bring him to ruin, and

promised them extravagant reward in recompense for fidelity. They

remained obdurate.

Then Ludovico, disguised as a monk, sought to flee; but a Swiss named

Schattenhalb betrayed him to the French captains. He was seized and

carried before the marshal, who rewarded the Swiss with thirty pieces of

silver.

The Sire de la Trémouille had charge of the prisoner to escort him to

France. He, who, in the words of the court poet, 'first after God had

guided the wheel of Fortune,' was placed in a barred cage and carried in

a cart, like a trapped wild beast. The duke asked one favour of his

captors, that he might carry a copy of the _Divina Commedia_ with him

into his exile, '_per istudiari_.'

Life at the Villa Melzi became daily more perilous. The French had

sacked Lomellina. The Venetians had destroyed the Martesana. Robbers

roamed in the neighbourhood of Vaprio; already Messer Gerolamo Melzi was

preparing to carry Francesco and Aunt Bona into refuge at Chiavenna.

Leonardo's last night came; he inscribed in his diary the thoughts of

the day:--

'A bird having little tail but broad wings, flaps them with great

violence, and turns _so that the wind may blow under them_ and raise her

_aloft_. This I observed watching a young hawk above the canonry of

Vaprio, on the road to Bergamo, to-day, April 14th.'

And in the margin he added incidentally: 'Il Moro has lost his state,

his goods, and his liberty; not one of his undertakings will be achieved

by himself.'

The overthrow of the great house of Sforza, the ruin of the man he had

served for sixteen years, were to him of far less interest than the

flight of a bird of prey.