Now it so happened that just at the time when Leonardo da Vinci died, a certain young Russian courtier named Eutychius came a second time to Amboise in the train of Karachiarov, the Russian ambassador. On his journey this young courtier, who brought a gift of gold and of priceless Persian falcons for King Francis, visited Florence, and had seen the bas-relief on the Campanile, which represented DÆdalus experimenting with waxen wings. It had given Leonardo in his boyhood the first idea of Wings for Man; and now it was of interest to the young Russian, who in his spare time, for pleasure, was painting an ecclesiastical icon of 'The Winged Precursor.' With vague and half-prophetic awe he contemplated the contrast between the material wings constructed by DÆdalus, who was perhaps assisted by demons, and the spiritual wings—'upon which pure souls rise to God'—of the 'Incarnate Angel,' the Precursor, St. John the Baptist.

While at Amboise, Eutychius one day obtained leave to visit the chÂteau of Cloux, where the deceased Master, Leonardo da Vinci, had lived. The party was received by Francesco Melzi, who showed them the studio and all it contained. They inspected the strange instruments, the apparatus for the study of the laws of sound, the great crystal eye for experiments on sight, the diving-bell, the anatomical drawings, the designs for engines of war. All this was interesting; but for Eutychius the supreme attraction was the broken frame of a wing resembling the pinion of a great swallow. He learned from Melzi of its history and its purpose; and strange thoughts rose in his breast as he remembered DÆdalus on the marble tower of Santa Maria del Fiore.

Presently he stood in bewilderment before the dead Leonardo's picture of St. John the Baptist. The appearance of the Forerunner was almost that of a woman; yet he carried the reed cross, and was clothed with camel's hair. He was not like the Winged Precursor familiar to the painter of icons; but his charm was irresistible. What was the significance of the subtle smile with which he pointed to the cross of Golgotha?

Eutychius stood spell-bound, scarce listening to the animadversions of his fellows. 'What? this beardless, naked, effeminate youth, the Precursor? Not of Christ, then, but of Antichrist—accursed for ever!'

Eutychius heard without heeding; and when he came away the mysterious figure of the wingless one, fair as a woman, with flowing locks like Dionysus, pointing to the cross—haunted him like a vision.

The young Russian painter was lodged in an attic beside the dove-cot; and had arranged his working place in the recess of the dormer-window.

He busied himself with the painting of the icon, already nearly completed, of St. John the Baptist. The saint stood on a sunburnt hill, round, like the edge of a globe. It was bordered by the purple sea, and canopied by the blue vault of heaven. The figure carried in its hand a head, which was the duplicate of his own, but seemed that of a corpse. Thus Eutychius had tried to show that the man who has slain in himself all that is human may attain to a more than human flight. His face was terrible and strange; his gaze like the gaze of an eagle, fixed upon the sun. His hair and beard floated on the blast, his raiment was like the plumage of a bird. His limbs were long and gave an impression of singular lightness. On his shoulder were set great swan-like wings, extended over the tawny earth and the purple sea.

To-night Eutychius had little more to do than to touch the inner side of the plumes with gold. But his attention wandered, he thought of DÆdalus and of Leonardo; he remembered the face of the wingless youth in the Master's last picture, and found it eclipsing that of the winged one which he had drawn himself. His hand grew heavy and uncertain; the brush fell; his strength failed. He left his room and wandered for hours along the banks of the silent river.

The sun had set; the pale green sky, the evening stars were reflected in the water, but in the east clouds were rising, and summer lightning quivered in the air as if waving fiery wings. Returning, he lit the lamp before the icon of the Virgin, and threw himself on his bed. He could not sleep, but lay tossing and shivering feverishly for hour after hour, fancying weird rustlings and whispers in the stillness, and remembering all the eerie tales of the Russian folk-lore.

Wearied and wakeful, Eutychius tried to read. He selected an old book at random, and the familiar Russian legend of the 'Crown of the Kingdom of Babylon,' and of the world-wide sovereignty destined by God for the land of Russia. Then Eutychius turned a page and read another legend, that of 'The White Hood.'

In days of yore Constantine the emperor, having accepted the Christian faith and received absolution for his sins from Sylvester the pope, desired to give the pontiff a kingly crown. But an angel, appearing unto him, bade him give a crown not of earthly but of spiritual supremacy—a White Hood like unto a monkish cowl. Nevertheless the Roman Church laid claim to temporal no less than to spiritual power; wherefore the angel appeared to the pope and commanded him to send the Hood to Philotheus, the Patriarch of Constantinople; and when he would have retained it, there appeared unto the Patriarch another vision: Constantine the emperor and Sylvester the pope, bidding him send on the Hood yet further, into the country of Russia, to Novgorod the Great.

'For,' said Sylvester in this dream, 'the first Rome has fallen by her pride and self-will; and Constantinople, the second Rome, is like to perish by the fury of the infidel; but in the third Rome, which shall be in the land of Russia, the light of the Holy Ghost is already shining, and at the last all Christian nations shall be united in the Russian dominion under the shadow of the Orthodox faith.'

Each time Eutychius read these tales, a vague and boundless hope filled his soul. His heart beat and his breath caught, as though he were standing on the edge of a precipice. For it seemed that the legend of the Babylonian kingdom was prophetic of earthly greatness; that of the White Hood, of heavenly glory for his native land. However poor, however wretched she might be now in comparison with other countries, still she was to be the third Rome, the new Zion; and the rays of the rising sun were destined to shine on the seventeen golden domes of the Russian church of St. Sophia, the Wisdom of God. And yet, he asked himself, how should it be that the White Hood, the third, the holiest Rome, should unite itself with the hateful crown of Nebuchadnezzar, who had been cursed of God, whose city was Babylon, and accursed in the Book of Revelation. The young painter's effort to solve the riddle brought fantastic vision to his hot brain.

He fell asleep, and he too dreamed a dream:

He saw a Woman in shining garments, with flaming countenance and fiery wings, standing among fleeting clouds, her feet on the crescent moon; over her was a seven-pillared tabernacle, with the inscription:—

'Wisdom hath builded her an house.'

Prophets and patriarchs surrounded her, saints and angels, thrones and dominions and powers, and all the company of Heaven. And among the prophets at Wisdom's very foot stood John the Precursor with his white plumes as on the icon, but wearing the face of Leonardo da Vinci, who had dreamed of wings for men. And behind the Woman, golden cupolas and pinnacles of churches innumerable glowed like fire in the azure sky; and beyond them stretched a gloriously boundless expanse, which Eutychius recognised as the land of Russia.

Belfries shook with a triumphant peal; angels sang victorious Alleluia; the seven archangels smote their wings, and the seven thunders spoke. And above the fire-clothed Woman, Hagia Sophia, the Wisdom of God, the heavens opened, and bright as the sun—terrible—shone the White Hood, the heavenly head-dress, over the land of Russia.

Eutychius awoke. He opened the windows, and to him was wafted the fragrance of leaves and grasses washed by rain. The sun had not yet risen, but gold and purple decked the place of his coming—the skyey verge above the woods, and the river, and the fields. The town still slept in twilight; only the belfry of St. Hubert glistened with a pale green light. The hush was full of great expectation. Far away on the sand-banks of the Loire the white swans were calling.

Suddenly, like a live coal, the sun shone out behind the forest. Something like music passed across the earth and the heaven. Pigeons shook their wings and rose in circles. Day, entering the window, fell full on the icon of the Forerunner; the wings, extended over lands and seas, flashed and sparkled in the morning radiance, as if informed with supernatural life.

Eutychius, dipping his brush into crimson, wrote these words on the scroll upon the icon, under the Winged Precursor:—

"Behold I will send my messenger before my face, and he shall prepare my way before me."

THE END

'THOU ART THYSELF THY GOD, THYSELF THY NEIGHBOUR:

O BE AS WELL THINE OWN CREATOR TOO;

BE THE ABYSS ABOVE, THE DEPTH BELOW;

AT ONCE THINE OWN END, AND THINE OWN BEGINNING.'