She was for attacking one of the three bastilles that were on our side of

the river and forcing access to the bridge which it guarded (a project

which, if successful, would raise the siege instantly), but the

long-ingrained fear of the English came upon her generals and they

implored her not to make the attempt. The soldiers wanted to attack, but

had to suffer disappointment. So we moved on and came to a halt at a

point opposite Checy, six miles above Orleans.

Dunois, Bastard of Orleans, with a body of knights and citizens, came up

from the city to welcome Joan. Joan was still burning with resentment

over the trick that had been put upon her, and was not in the mood for

soft speeches, even to reversed military idols of her childhood. She

said:

"Are you the bastard?"

"Yes, I am he, and am right glad of your coming."

"And did you advise that I be brought by this side of the river instead

of straight to Talbot and the English?"

Her high manner abashed him, and he was not able to answer with anything

like a confident promptness, but with many hesitations and partial

excuses he managed to get out the confession that for what he and the

council had regarded as imperative military reasons they so advised.

"In God's name," said Joan, "my Lord's counsel is safer and wiser than

yours. You thought to deceive me, but you have deceived yourselves, for I

bring you the best help that ever knight or city had; for it is God's

help, not sent for love of me, but by God's pleasure. At the prayer of

St. Louis and St. Charlemagne He has had pity on Orleans, and will not

suffer the enemy to have both the Duke of Orleans and his city. The

provisions to save the starving people are here, the boats are below the

city, the wind is contrary, they cannot come up hither. Now then, tell

me, in God's name, you who are so wise, what that council of yours was

thinking about, to invent this foolish difficulty."

Dunois and the rest fumbled around the matter a moment, then gave in and

conceded that a blunder had been made.

"Yes, a blunder has been made," said Joan, "and except God take your

proper work upon Himself and change the wind and correct your blunder for

you, there is none else that can devise a remedy."

Some of these people began to perceive that with all her technical

ignorance she had practical good sense, and that with all her native

sweetness and charm she was not the right kind of a person to play with.

Presently God did take the blunder in hand, and by His grace the wind did

change. So the fleet of boats came up and went away loaded with

provisions and cattle, and conveyed that welcome succor to the hungry

city, managing the matter successfully under protection of a sortie from

the walls against the bastille of St. Loup. Then Joan began on the

Bastard again:

"You see here the army?"

"Yes."

"It is here on this side by advice of your council?"

"Yes."

"Now, in God's name, can that wise council explain why it is better to

have it here than it would be to have it in the bottom of the sea?"

Dunois made some wandering attempts to explain the inexplicable and

excuse the inexcusable, but Joan cut him short and said:

"Answer me this, good sir--has the army any value on this side of the

river?"

The Bastard confessed that it hadn't--that is, in view of the plan of

campaign which she had devised and decreed.

"And yet, knowing this, you had the hardihood to disobey my orders. Since

the army's place is on the other side, will you explain to me how it is

to get there?"

The whole size of the needless muddle was apparent. Evasions were of no

use; therefore Dunois admitted that there was no way to correct the

blunder but to send the army all the way back to Blois, and let it begin

over again and come up on the other side this time, according to Joan's

original plan.

Any other girl, after winning such a triumph as this over a veteran

soldier of old renown, might have exulted a little and been excusable for

it, but Joan showed no disposition of this sort. She dropped a word or

two of grief over the precious time that must be lost, then began at once

to issue commands for the march back. She sorrowed to see her army go;

for she said its heart was great and its enthusiasm high, and that with

it at her back she did not fear to face all the might of England.

All arrangements having been completed for the return of the main body of

the army, she took the Bastard and La Hire and a thousand men and went

down to Orleans, where all the town was in a fever of impatience to have

sight of her face. It was eight in the evening when she and the troops

rode in at the Burgundy gate, with the Paladin preceding her with her

standard. She was riding a white horse, and she carried in her hand the

sacred sword of Fierbois. You should have seen Orleans then. What a

picture it was! Such black seas of people, such a starry firmament of

torches, such roaring whirlwinds of welcome, such booming of bells and

thundering of cannon! It was as if the world was come to an end.

Everywhere in the glare of the torches one saw rank upon rank of upturned

white faces, the mouths wide open, shouting, and the unchecked tears

running down; Joan forged her slow way through the solid masses, her

mailed form projecting above the pavement of heads like a silver statue.

The people about her struggled along, gazing up at her through their

tears with the rapt look of men and women who believe they are seeing one

who is divine; and always her feet were being kissed by grateful folk,

and such as failed of that privilege touched her horse and then kissed

their fingers.

Nothing that Joan did escaped notice; everything she did was commented

upon and applauded. You could hear the remarks going all the time.

"There--she's smiling--see!"

"Now she's taking her little plumed cap off to somebody--ah, it's fine

and graceful!"

"She's patting that woman on the head with her gauntlet."

"Oh, she was born on a horse--see her turn in her saddle, and kiss the

hilt of her sword to the ladies in the window that threw the flowers

down."

"Now there's a poor woman lifting up a child--she's kissed it--oh, she's

divine!"

"What a dainty little figure it is, and what a lovely face--and such

color and animation!"

Joan's slender long banner streaming backward had an accident--the fringe

caught fire from a torch. She leaned forward and crushed the flame in her

hand.

"She's not afraid of fire nor anything!" they shouted, and delivered a

storm of admiring applause that made everything quake.

She rode to the cathedral and gave thanks to God, and the people crammed

the place and added their devotions to hers; then she took up her march

again and picked her slow way through the crowds and the wilderness of

torches to the house of Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the Duke of

Orleans, where she was to be the guest of his wife as long as she stayed

in the city, and have his young daughter for comrade and room-mate. The

delirium of the people went on the rest of the night, and with it the

clamor of the joy-bells and the welcoming cannon.

Joan of Arc had stepped upon her stage at last, and was ready to begin.

Chapter 14 What the English Answered

SHE WAS ready, but must sit down and wait until there was an army to work

with.

Next morning, Saturday, April 30, 1429, she set about inquiring after the

messenger who carried her proclamation to the English from Blois--the one

which she had dictated at Poitiers. Here is a copy of it. It is a

remarkable document, for several reasons: for its matter-of-fact

directness, for its high spirit and forcible diction, and for its naive

confidence in her ability to achieve the prodigious task which she had

laid upon herself, or which had been laid upon her--which you please. All

through it you seem to see the pomps of war and hear the rumbling of the

drums. In it Joan's warrior soul is revealed, and for the moment the soft

little shepherdess has disappeared from your view. This untaught

country-damsel, unused to dictating anything at all to anybody, much less

documents of state to kings and generals, poured out this procession of

vigorous sentences as fluently as if this sort of work had been her trade

from childhood:

JESUS MARIA King of England and you Duke of Bedford who call yourself

Regent of France; William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk; and you Thomas

Lord Scales, who style yourselves lieutenants of the said Bedford--do

right to the King of Heaven. Render to the Maid who is sent by God the

keys of all the good towns you have taken and violated in France. She is

sent hither by God, to restore the blood royal. She is very ready to make

peace if you will do her right by giving up France and paying for what

you have held. And you archers, companions of war, noble and otherwise,

who are before the good city of Orleans, begone into your own land in

God's name, or expect news from the Maid who will shortly go to see you

to your very great hurt. King of England, if you do not so, I am chief of

war, and whenever I shall find your people in France, I will drive them

out, willing or not willing; and if they do not obey I will slay them

all, but if they obey, I will have them to mercy. I am come hither by

God, the King of Heaven, body for body, to put you our of France, in

spite of those who would work treason and mischief against the kingdom.

Think not you shall ever hold the kingdom from the King of Heaven, the

Son of the Blessed Mary; King Charles shall hold it, for God wills it so,

and has revealed it to him by the Maid. If you believe not the news sent

by God through the Maid, wherever we shall met you we will strike boldly

and make such a noise as has not been in France these thousand years. Be

sure that God can send more strength to the Maid than you can bring to

any assault against her and her good men-at-arms; and then we shall see

who has the better right, the King of Heaven, or you. Duke of Bedford,

the Maid prays you not to bring about your own destruction. If you do her

right, you may yet go in her company where the French shall do the finest

deed that has been done in Christendom, and if you do not, you shall be

reminded shortly of your great wrongs.

In that closing sentence she invites them to go on crusade with her to

rescue the Holy Sepulcher. No answer had been returned to this

proclamation, and the messenger himself had not come back.

So now she sent her two heralds with a new letter warning the English to

raise the siege and requiring them to restore that missing messenger. The

heralds came back without him. All they brought was notice from the

English to Joan that they would presently catch her and burn her if she

did not clear out now while she had a chance, and "go back to her proper

trade of minding cows."

She held her peace, only saying it was a pity that the English would

persist in inviting present disaster and eventual destruction when she

was "doing all she could to get them out of the country with their lives

still in their bodies."

Presently she thought of an arrangement that might be acceptable, and

said to the heralds, "Go back and say to Lord Talbot this, from me: 'Come

out of your bastilles with your host, and I will come with mine; if I

beat you, go in peace out of France; if you beat me, burn me, according

to your desire.'"

I did not hear this, but Dunois did, and spoke of it. The challenge was

refused.

Sunday morning her Voices or some instinct gave her a warning, and she

sent Dunois to Blois to take command of the army and hurry it to Orleans.

It was a wise move, for he found Regnault de Chartres and some more of

the King's pet rascals there trying their best to disperse the army, and

crippling all the efforts of Joan's generals to head it for Orleans. They

were a fine lot, those miscreants. They turned their attention to Dunois

now, but he had balked Joan once, with unpleasant results to himself, and

was not minded to meddle in that way again. He soon had the army moving.

Chapter 15 My Exquisite Poem Goes to Smash

WE OF the personal staff were in fairyland now, during the few days that

we waited for the return of the army. We went into society. To our two

knights this was not a novelty, but to us young villagers it was a new

and wonderful life. Any position of any sort near the person of the Maid

of Vaucouleurs conferred high distinction upon the holder and caused his

society to be courted; and so the D'Arc brothers, and Noel, and the

Paladin, humble peasants at home, were gentlemen here, personages of

weight and influence. It was fine to see how soon their country

diffidences and awkwardnesses melted away under this pleasant sun of

deference and disappeared, and how lightly and easily they took to their

new atmosphere. The Paladin was as happy as it was possible for any one

in this earth to be. His tongue went all the time, and daily he got new

delight out of hearing himself talk. He began to enlarge his ancestry and

spread it out all around, and ennoble it right and left, and it was not

long until it consisted almost entirely of dukes. He worked up his old

battles and tricked them out with fresh splendors; also with new terrors,

for he added artillery now. We had seen cannon for the first time at

Blois--a few pieces--here there was plenty of it, and now and then we had

the impressive spectacle of a huge English bastille hidden from sight in

a mountain of smoke from its own guns, with lances of red flame darting

through it; and this grand picture, along with the quaking thunders

pounding away in the heart of it, inflamed the Paladin's imagination and

enabled him to dress out those ambuscade-skirmishes of ours with a

sublimity which made it impossible for any to recognize them at all

except people who had not been there.

You may suspect that there was a special inspiration for these great

efforts of the Paladin's, and there was. It was the daughter of the

house, Catherine Boucher, who was eighteen, and gentle and lovely in her

ways, and very beautiful. I think she might have been as beautiful as

Joan herself, if she had had Joan's eyes. But that could never be. There

was never but that one pair, there will never be another. Joan's eyes

were deep and rich and wonderful beyond anything merely earthly. They

spoke all the languages--they had no need of words. They produced all

effects--and just by a glance, just a single glance; a glance that could

convict a liar of his lie and make him confess it; that could bring down

a proud man's pride and make him humble; that could put courage into a

coward and strike dead the courage of the bravest; that could appease

resentments and real hatreds; that could make the doubter believe and the

hopeless hope again; that could purify the impure mind; that could

persuade--ah, there it is--persuasion! that is the word; what or who is

it that it couldn't persuade? The maniac of Domremy--the fairy-banishing

priest--the reverend tribunal of Toul--the doubting and superstitious

Laxart--the obstinate veteran of Vaucouleurs--the characterless heir of

France--the sages and scholars of the Parliament and University of

Poitiers--the darling of Satan, La Hire--the masterless Bastard of

Orleans, accustomed to acknowledge no way as right and rational but his

own--these were the trophies of that great gift that made her the wonder

and mystery that she was.

We mingled companionably with the great folk who flocked to the big house

to make Joan's acquaintance, and they made much of us and we lived in the

clouds, so to speak. But what we preferred even to this happiness was the

quieter occasions, when the formal guests were gone and the family and a

few dozen of its familiar friends were gathered together for a social

good time. It was then that we did our best, we five youngsters, with

such fascinations as we had, and the chief object of them was Catherine.

None of us had ever been in love been in love before, and now we had the

misfortune to all fall in love with the same person at the same

time--which was the first moment we saw her. She was a merry heart, and

full of life, and I still remember tenderly those few evenings that I was

permitted to have my share of her dear society and of comradeship with

that little company of charming people.

The Paladin made us all jealous the first night, for when he got fairly

started on those battles of his he had everything to himself, and there

was no use in anybody else's trying to get any attention. Those people

had been living in the midst of real war for seven months; and to hear

this windy giant lay out his imaginary campaigns and fairly swim in blood

and spatter it all around, entertained them to the verge of the grave.

Catherine was like to die, for pure enjoyment. She didn't laugh loud--we,

of course, wished she would--but kept in the shelter of a fan, and shook

until there was danger that she would unhitch her ribs from her spine.

Then when the Paladin had got done with a battle and we began to feel

thankful and hope for a change, she would speak up in a way that was so

sweet and persuasive that it rankled in me, and ask him about some detail

or other in the early part of his battle which she said had greatly

interested her, and would he be so good as to describe that part again

and with a little more particularity?--which of course precipitated the

whole battle on us, again, with a hundred lies added that had been

overlooked before.

I do not know how to make you realize the pain I suffered. I had never

been jealous before, and it seemed intolerable that this creature should

have this good fortune which he was so ill entitled to, and I have to sit

and see myself neglected when I was so longing for the least little

attention out of the thousand that this beloved girl was lavishing on

him. I was near her, and tried two or three times to get started on some

of the things that I had done in those battles--and I felt ashamed of

myself, too, for stooping to such a business--but she cared for nothing

but his battles, and could not be got to listen; and presently when one

of my attempts caused her to lose some precious rag or other of his

mendacities and she asked him to repeat, thus bringing on a new

engagement, of course, and increasing the havoc and carnage tenfold, I

felt so humiliated by this pitiful miscarriage of mine that I gave up and

tried no more.

The others were as outraged by the Paladin's selfish conduct as I

was--and by his grand luck, too, of course--perhaps, indeed, that was the

main hurt. We talked our trouble over together, which was natural, for

rivals become brothers when a common affliction assails them and a common

enemy bears off the victory.

Each of us could do things that would please and get notice if it were

not for this person, who occupied all the time and gave others no chance.

I had made a poem, taking a whole night to it--a poem in which I most

happily and delicately celebrated that sweet girl's charms, without

mentioning her name, but any one could see who was meant; for the bare

title--"The Rose of Orleans"--would reveal that, as it seemed to me. It

pictured this pure and dainty white rose as growing up out of the rude

soil of war and looking abroad out of its tender eyes upon the horrid

machinery of death, and then--note this conceit--it blushes for the

sinful nature of man, and turns red in a single night. Becomes a red

rose, you see--a rose that was white before. The idea was my own, and

quite new. Then it sent its sweet perfume out over the embattled city,

and when the beleaguering forces smelt it they laid down their arms and

wept. This was also my own idea, and new. That closed that part of the

poem; then I put her into the similitude of the firmament--not the whole

of it, but only part. That is to say, she was the moon, and all the

constellations were following her about, their hearts in flames for love

of her, but she would not halt, she would not listen, for 'twas thought

she loved another. 'Twas thought she loved a poor unworthy suppliant who

was upon the earth, facing danger, death, and possible mutilation in the

bloody field, waging relentless war against a heartless foe to save her

from an all too early grave, and her city from destruction. And when the

sad pursuing constellations came to know and realize the bitter sorrow

that was come upon them --note this idea--their hearts broke and their

tears gushed forth, filling the vault of heaven with a fiery splendor,

for those tears were falling stars. It was a rash idea, but beautiful;

beautiful and pathetic; wonderfully pathetic, the way I had it, with the

rhyme and all to help. At the end of each verse there was a two-line

refrain pitying the poor earthly lover separated so far, and perhaps

forever, from her he loved so well, and growing always paler and weaker

and thinner in his agony as he neared the cruel grave--the most touching

thing--even the boys themselves could hardly keep back their tears, the

way Noel said those lines. There were eight four-line stanzas in the

first end of the poem--the end about the rose, the horticultural end, as

you may say, if that is not too large a name for such a little poem--and

eight in the astronomical end--sixteen stanzas altogether, and I could

have made it a hundred and fifty if I had wanted to, I was so inspired

and so all swelled up with beautiful thoughts and fancies; but that would

have been too many to sing or recite before a company that way, whereas

sixteen was just right, and could be done over again if desired. The boys

were amazed that I could make such a poem as that out of my own head, and

so was I, of course, it being as much a surprise to me as it could be to

anybody, for I did not know that it was in me. If any had asked me a

single day before if it was in me, I should have told them frankly no, it

was not.

That is the way with us; we may go on half of our life not knowing such a

thing is in us, when in reality it was there all the time, and all we

needed was something to turn up that would call for it. Indeed, it was

always so without family. My grandfather had a cancer, and they never

knew what was the matter with him till he died, and he didn't know

himself. It is wonderful how gifts and diseases can be concealed in that

way. All that was necessary in my case was for this lovely and inspiring

girl to cross my path, and out came the poem, and no more trouble to me

to word it and rhyme it and perfect it than it is to stone a dog. No, I

should have said it was not in me; but it was.

The boys couldn't say enough about it, they were so charmed and

astonished. The thing that pleased them the most was the way it would do

the Paladin's business for him. They forgot everything in their anxiety

to get him shelved and silenced. Noel Rainguesson was clear beside

himself with admiration of the poem, and wished he could do such a thing,

but it was out of his line, and he couldn't, of course. He had it by

heart in half an hour, and there was never anything so pathetic and

beautiful as the way he recited it. For that was just his gift--that and

mimicry. He could recite anything better than anybody in the world, and

he could take of La Hire to the very life--or anybody else, for that

matter. Now I never could recite worth a farthing; and when I tried with

this poem the boys wouldn't let me finish; they would nave nobody but

Noel. So then, as I wanted the poem to make the best possible impression

on Catherine and the company, I told Noel he might do the reciting. Never

was anybody so delighted. He could hardly believe that I was in earnest,

but I was. I said that to have them know that I was the author of it

would be enough for me. The boys were full of exultation, and Noel said

if he could just get one chance at those people it would be all he would

ask; he would make them realize that there was something higher and finer

than war-lies to be had here.

But how to get the opportunity--that was the difficulty. We invented

several schemes that promised fairly, and at last we hit upon one that

was sure. That was, to let the Paladin get a good start in a manufactured

battle, and then send in a false call for him, and as soon as he was out

of the room, have Noel take his place and finish the battle himself in

the Paladin's own style, imitated to a shade. That would get great

applause, and win the house's favor and put it in the right mood to hear

the poem. The two triumphs together with finish the

Standard-Bearer--modify him, anyway, to a certainty, and give the rest of

us a chance for the future.

So the next night I kept out of the way until the Paladin had got his

start and was sweeping down upon the enemy like a whirlwind at the head

of his corps, then I stepped within the door in my official uniform and

announced that a messenger from General La Hire's quarters desired speech

with the Standard-Bearer. He left the room, and Noel took his place and

said that the interruption was to be deplored, but that fortunately he

was personally acquainted with the details of the battle himself, and if

permitted would be glad to state them to the company. Then without

waiting for the permission he turned himself to the Paladin--a dwarfed

Paladin, of course--with manner, tones, gestures, attitudes, everything

exact, and went right on with the battle, and it would be impossible to

imagine a more perfectly and minutely ridiculous imitation than he

furnished to those shrieking people. They went into spasms, convulsions,

frenzies of laughter, and the tears flowed down their cheeks in rivulets.

The more they laughed, the more inspires Noel grew with his theme and the

greater marvels he worked, till really the laughter was not properly

laughing any more, but screaming. Blessedest feature of all, Catherine

Boucher was dying with ecstasies, and presently there was little left of

her but gasps and suffocations. Victory? It was a perfect Agincourt.

The Paladin was gone only a couple of minutes; he found out at once that

a trick had been played on him, so he came back. When he approached the

door he heard Noel ranting in there and recognized the state of the case;

so he remained near the door but out of sight, and heard the performance

through to the end. The applause Noel got when he finished was wonderful;

and they kept it up and kept it up, clapping their hands like mad, and

shouting to him to do it over again.

But Noel was clever. He knew the very best background for a poem of deep

and refined sentiment and pathetic melancholy was one where great and

satisfying merriment had prepared the spirit for the powerful contrast.

So he paused until all was quiet, then his face grew grave and assumed an

impressive aspect, and at once all faces sobered in sympathy and took on

a look of wondering and expectant interest. Now he began in a low but

distinct voice the opening verses of The Rose. As he breathed the

rhythmic measures forth, and one gracious line after another fell upon

those enchanted ears in that deep hush, one could catch, on every hand,

half-audible ejaculations of "How lovely--how beautiful--how exquisite!"

By this time the Paladin, who had gone away for a moment with the opening

of the poem, was back again, and had stepped within the door. He stood

there now, resting his great frame against the wall and gazing toward the

reciter like one entranced. When Noel got to the second part, and that

heart-breaking refrain began to melt and move all listeners, the Paladin

began to wipe away tears with the back of first one hand and then the

other. The next time the refrain was repeated he got to snuffling, and

sort of half sobbing, and went to wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his

doublet. He was so conspicuous that he embarrassed Noel a little, and

also had an ill effect upon the audience. With the next repetition he

broke quite down and began to cry like a calf, which ruined all the

effect and started many to the audience to laughing. Then he went on from

bad to worse, until I never saw such a spectacle; for he fetched out a

towel from under his doublet and began to swab his eyes with it and let

go the most infernal bellowings mixed up with sobbings and groanings and

retchings and barkings and coughings and snortings and screamings and

howlings --and he twisted himself about on his heels and squirmed this

way and that, still pouring out that brutal clamor and flourishing his

towel in the air and swabbing again and wringing it out. Hear? You

couldn't hear yourself think. Noel was wholly drowned out and silenced,

and those people were laughing the very lungs out of themselves. It was

the most degrading sight that ever was. Now I heard the clankety-clank

that plate-armor makes when the man that is in it is running, and then

alongside my head there burst out the most inhuman explosion of laughter

that ever rent the drum of a person's ear, and I looked, and it was La

Hire; and the stood there with his gauntlets on his hips and his head

tilted back and his jaws spread to that degree to let out his hurricanes

and his thunders that it amounted to indecent exposure, for you could see

everything that was in him. Only one thing more and worse could happen,

and it happened: at the other door I saw the flurry and bustle and

bowings and scrapings of officials and flunkeys which means that some

great personage is coming--then Joan of Arc stepped in, and the house

rose! Yes, and tried to shut its indecorous mouth and make itself grave

and proper; but when it saw the Maid herself go to laughing, it thanked

God for this mercy and the earthquake that followed.

Such things make a life of bitterness, and I do not wish to dwell upon

them. The effect of the poem was spoiled.

Chapter 16 The Finding of the Dwarf

THIS EPISODE disagreed with me and I was not able to leave my bed the

next day. The others were in the same condition. But for this, one or

another of us might have had the good luck that fell to the Paladin's

share that day; but it is observable that God in His compassion sends the

good luck to such as are ill equipped with gifts, as compensation for

their defect, but requires such as are more fortunately endowed to get by

labor and talent what those others get by chance. It was Noel who said

this, and it seemed to me to be well and justly thought.

The Paladin, going about the town all the day in order to be followed and

admired and overhear the people say in an awed voice, "'Ssh! --look, it

is the Standard-Bearer of Joan of Arc!" had speech with all sorts and

conditions of folk, and he learned from some boatmen that there was a

stir of some kind going on in the bastilles on the other side of the

river; and in the evening, seeking further, he found a deserter from the

fortress called the "Augustins," who said that the English were going to

send me over to strengthen the garrisons on our side during the darkness

of the night, and were exulting greatly, for they meant to spring upon

Dunois and the army when it was passing the bastilles and destroy it; a

thing quite easy to do, since the "Witch" would not be there, and without

her presence the army would do like the French armies of these many years

past--drop their weapons and run when they saw an English face.

It was ten at night when the Paladin brought this news and asked leave to

speak to Joan, and I was up and on duty then. It was a bitter stroke to

me to see what a chance I had lost. Joan made searching inquiries, and

satisfied herself that the word was true, then she made this annoying

remark:

"You have done well, and you have my thanks. It may be that you have

prevented a disaster. Your name and service shall receive official

mention."

Then he bowed low, and when he rose he was eleven feet high. As he

swelled out past me he covertly pulled down the corner of his eye with

his finger and muttered part of that defiled refrain, "Oh, tears, ah,

tears, oh, sad sweet tears!--name in General Orders--personal mention to

the King, you see!"

I wished Joan could have seen his conduct, but she was busy thinking what

she would do. Then she had me fetch the knight Jean de Metz, and in a

minute he was off for La Hire's quarters with orders for him and the Lord

de Villars and Florent d'Illiers to report to her at five o'clock next

morning with five hundred picked men well mounted. The histories say half

past four, but it is not true, I heard the order given.

We were on our way at five to the minute, and encountered the head of the

arriving column between six and seven, a couple of leagues from the city.

Dunois was pleased, for the army had begun to get restive and show

uneasiness now that it was getting so near to the dreaded bastilles. But

that all disappeared now, as the word ran down the line, with a huzza

that swept along the length of it like a wave, that the Maid was come.

Dunois asked her to halt and let the column pass in review, so that the

men could be sure that the reports of her presence was not a ruse to

revive their courage. So she took position at the side of the road with

her staff, and the battalions swung by with a martial stride, huzzaing.

Joan was armed, except her head. She was wearing the cunning little

velvet cap with the mass of curved white ostrich plumes tumbling over its

edges which the city of Orleans had given her the night she arrived--the

one that is in the picture that hangs in the H"tel de Ville at Rouen. She

was looking about fifteen. The sight of soldiers always set her blood to

leaping, and lit the fires in her eyes and brought the warm rich color to

her cheeks; it was then that you saw that she was too beautiful to be of

the earth, or at any rate that there was a subtle something somewhere

about her beauty that differed it from the human types of your experience

and exalted it above them.

In the train of wains laden with supplies a man lay on top of the goods.

He was stretched out on his back, and his hands were tied together with

ropes, and also his ankles. Joan signed to the officer in charge of that

division of the train to come to her, and he rode up and saluted.

"What is he that is bound there?" she asked.

"A prisoner, General."

"What is his offense?"

"He is a deserter."

"What is to be done with him?"

"He will be hanged, but it was not convenient on the march, and there was

no hurry."

"Tell me about him."

"He is a good soldier, but he asked leave to go and see his wife who was

dying, he said, but it could not be granted; so he went without leave.

Meanwhile the march began, and he only overtook us yesterday evening."

"Overtook you? Did he come of his own will?"

"Yes, it was of his own will."

"He a deserter! Name of God! Bring him to me."

The officer rode forward and loosed the man's feet and brought him back

with his hands still tied. What a figure he was--a good seven feet high,

and built for business! He had a strong face; he had an unkempt shock of

black hair which showed up a striking way when the officer removed his

morion for him; for weapon he had a big ax in his broad leathern belt.

Standing by Joan's horse, he made Joan look littler than ever, for his

head was about on a level with her own. His face was profoundly

melancholy; all interest in life seemed to be dead in the man. Joan said:

"Hold up your hands."

The man's head was down. He lifted it when he heard that soft friendly

voice, and there was a wistful something in his face which made one think

that there had been music in it for him and that he would like to hear it

again. When he raised his hands Joan laid her sword to his bonds, but the

officer said with apprehension:

"Ah, madam--my General!"

"What is it?" she said.

"He is under sentence!"

"Yes, I know. I am responsible for him"; and she cut the bonds. They had

lacerated his wrists, and they were bleeding. "Ah, pitiful!" she said;

"blood--I do not like it"; and she shrank from the sight. But only for a

moment. "Give me something, somebody, to bandage his wrists with."

The officer said:

"Ah, my General! it is not fitting. Let me bring another to do it."

"Another? De par le Dieu! You would seek far to find one that can do it

better than I, for I learned it long ago among both men and beasts. And I

can tie better than those that did this; if I had tied him the ropes had

not cut his flesh."

The man looked on silent, while he was being bandaged, stealing a furtive

glance at Joan's face occasionally, such as an animal might that is

receiving a kindness form an unexpected quarter and is gropingly trying

to reconcile the act with its source. All the staff had forgotten the

huzzaing army drifting by in its rolling clouds of dust, to crane their

necks and watch the bandaging as if it was the most interesting and

absorbing novelty that ever was. I have often seen people do like

that--get entirely lost in the simplest trifle, when it is something that

is out of their line. Now there in Poitiers, once, I saw two bishops and

a dozen of those grave and famous scholars grouped together watching a

man paint a sign on a shop; they didn't breathe, they were as good as

dead; and when it began to sprinkle they didn't know it at first; then

they noticed it, and each man hove a deep sigh, and glanced up with a

surprised look as wondering to see the others there, and how he came to

be there himself--but that is the way with people, as I have said. There

is no way of accounting for people. You have to take them as they are.

"There," said Joan at last, pleased with her success; "another could have

done it no better--not as well, I think. Tell me--what is it you did?

Tell me all."

The giant said:

"It was this way, my angel. My mother died, then my three little

children, one after the other, all in two years. It was the famine;

others fared so--it was God's will. I saw them die; I had that grace; and

I buried them. Then when my poor wife's fate was come, I begged for leave

to go to her--she who was so dear to me--she who was all I had; I begged

on my knees. But they would not let me. Could I let her die, friendless

and alone? Could I let her die believing I would not come? Would she let

me die and she not come--with her feet free to do it if she would, and no

cost upon it but only her life? Ah, she would come--she would come

through the fire! So I went. I saw her. She died in my arms. I buried

her. Then the army was gone. I had trouble to overtake it, but my legs

are long and there are many hours in a day; I overtook it last night."

Joan said, musingly, as if she were thinking aloud:

"It sounds true. If true, it were no great harm to suspend the law this

one time--any would say that. It may not be true, but if it is true--"

She turned suddenly to the man and said, "I would see your eyes--look

up!" The eyes of the two met, and Joan said to the officer, "This man is

pardoned. Give you good day; you may go." Then she said to the man, "Did

you know it was death to come back to the army?"

"Yes," he said, "I knew it."

"Then why did you do it?"

The man said, quite simply:

"Because it was death. She was all I had. There was nothing left to

love."

"Ah, yes, there was--France! The children of France have always their

mother--they cannot be left with nothing to love. You shall live--and you

shall serve France--"

"I will serve you!"

--"you shall fight for France--"

"I will fight for you!"

"You shall be France's soldier--"

"I will be your soldier!"

--"you shall give all your heart to France--"

"I will give all my heart to you--and all my soul, if I have one--and all

my strength, which is great--for I was dead and am alive again; I had

nothing to live for, but now I have! You are France for me. You are my

France, and I will have no other."

Joan smiled, and was touched and pleased at the man's grave

enthusiasm--solemn enthusiasm, one may call it, for the manner of it was

deeper than mere gravity--and she said:

"Well, it shall be as you will. What are you called?"

The man answered with unsmiling simplicity:

"They call me the Dwarf, but I think it is more in jest than otherwise."

It made Joan laugh, and she said:

"It has something of that look truly! What is the office of that vast

ax?"

The soldier replied with the same gravity--which must have been born to

him, it sat upon him so naturally:

"It is to persuade persons to respect France."

Joan laughed again, and said:

"Have you given many lessons?"

"Ah, indeed, yes--many."

"The pupils behaved to suit you, afterward?"

"Yes; it made them quiet--quite pleasant and quiet."

"I should think it would happen so. Would you like to be my

man-at-arms?--orderly, sentinel, or something like that?"

"If I may!"

"Then you shall. You shall have proper armor, and shall go on teaching

your art. Take one of those led horses there, and follow the staff when

we move."

That is how we came by the Dwarf; and a good fellow he was. Joan picked

him out on sight, but it wasn't a mistake; no one could be faithfuler

than he was, and he was a devil and the son of a devil when he turned

himself loose with his ax. He was so big that he made the Paladin look

like an ordinary man. He liked to like people, therefore people liked

him. He liked us boys from the start; and he liked the knights, and liked

pretty much everybody he came across; but he thought more of a paring of

Joan's finger-nail than he did of all the rest of the world put together.

Yes, that is where we got him--stretched on the wain, going to his death,

poor chap, and nobody to say a good word for him. He was a good find.

Why, the knights treated him almost like an equal--it is the honest

truth; that is the sort of a man he was. They called him the Bastille

sometimes, and sometimes they called him Hellfire, which was on account

of his warm and sumptuous style in battle, and you know they wouldn't

have given him pet names if they hadn't had a good deal of affection for

him.

To the Dwarf, Joan was France, the spirit of France made flesh--he never

got away from that idea that he had started with; and God knows it was

the true one. That was a humble eye to see so great a truth where some

others failed. To me that seems quite remarkable. And yet, after all, it

was, in a way, just what nations do. When they love a great and noble

thing, they embody it--they want it so that they can see it with their

eyes; like liberty, for instance. They are not content with the cloudy

abstract idea, they make a beautiful statue of it, and then their beloved

idea is substantial and they can look at it and worship it. And so it is

as I say; to the Dwarf, Joan was our country embodied, our country made

visible flesh cast in a gracious form. When she stood before others, they

saw Joan of Arc, but he saw France.

Sometimes he would speak of her by that name. It shows you how the idea

was embedded in his mind, and how real it was to him. The world has

called our kings by it, but I know of none of them who has had so good a

right as she to that sublime title.

When the march past was finished, Joan returned to the front and rode at

the head of the column. When we began to file past those grim bastilles

and could glimpse the men within, standing to their guns and ready to

empty death into our ranks, such a faintness came over me and such a

sickness that all things seemed to turn dim and swim before my eyes; and

the other boys looked droopy, too, I thought--including the Paladin,

although I do not know this for certain, because he was ahead of me and I

had to keep my eyes out toward the bastille side, because I could wince

better when I saw what to wince at.

But Joan was at home--in Paradise, I might say. She sat up straight, and

I could see that she was feeling different from me. The awfulest thing

was the silence; there wasn't a sound but the screaking of the saddles,

the measured tramplings, and the sneezing of the horses, afflicted by the

smothering dust-clouds which they kicked up. I wanted to sneeze myself,

but it seemed to me that I would rather go unsneezed, or suffer even a

bitterer torture, if there is one, than attract attention to myself.

I was not of a rank to make suggestions, or I would have suggested that

if we went faster we should get by sooner. It seemed to me that it was an

ill-judged time to be taking a walk. Just as we were drifting in that

suffocating stillness past a great cannon that stood just within a raised

portcullis, with nothing between me and it but the moat, a most uncommon

jackass in there split the world with his bray, and I fell out of the

saddle. Sir Bertrand grabbed me as I went, which was well, for if I had

gone to the ground in my armor I could not have gotten up again by

myself. The English warders on the battlements laughed a coarse laugh,

forgetting that every one must begin, and that there had been a time when

they themselves would have fared no better when shot by a jackass.

The English never uttered a challenge nor fired a shot. It was said

afterward that when their men saw the Maid riding at the front and saw

how lovely she was, their eager courage cooled down in many cases and

vanished in the rest, they feeling certain that the creature was not

mortal, but the very child of Satan, and so the officers were prudent and

did not try to make them fight. It was said also that some of the

officers were affected by the same superstitious fears. Well, in any

case, they never offered to molest us, and we poked by all the grisly

fortresses in peace. During the march I caught up on my devotions, which

were in arrears; so it was not all loss and no profit for me after all.

It was on this march that the histories say Dunois told Joan that the

English were expecting reinforcements under the command of Sir John

Fastolfe, and that she turned upon him and said:

"Bastard, Bastard, in God's name I warn you to let me know of his coming

as soon as you hear of it; for if he passes without my knowledge you

shall lose your head!"

It may be so; I don't deny it; but I didn't her it. If she really said it

I think she only meant she would take off his official head --degrade him

from his command. It was not like her to threaten a comrade's life. She

did have her doubts of her generals, and was entitled to them, for she

was all for storm and assault, and they were for holding still and tiring

the English out. Since they did not believe in her way and were

experienced old soldiers, it would be natural for them to prefer their

own and try to get around carrying hers out.

But I did hear something that the histories didn't mention and don't know

about. I heard Joan say that now that the garrisons on the other wide had

been weakened to strengthen those on our side, the most effective point

of operations had shifted to the south shore; so she meant to go over

there and storm the forts which held the bridge end, and that would open

up communication with our own dominions and raise the siege. The generals

began to balk, privately, right away, but they only baffled and delayed

her, and that for only four days.

All Orleans met the army at the gate and huzzaed it through the bannered

streets to its various quarters, but nobody had to rock it to sleep; it

slumped down dog-tired, for Dunois had rushed it without mercy, and for

the next twenty-four hours it would be quiet, all but the snoring.

Chapter 17 Sweet Fruit of Bitter Truth

WHEN WE got home, breakfast for us minor fry was waiting in our mess-room

and the family honored us by coming in to eat it with us. The nice old

treasurer, and in fact all three were flatteringly eager to hear about

our adventures. Nobody asked the Paladin to begin, but he did begin,

because now that his specially ordained and peculiar military rank set

him above everybody on the personal staff but old D'Aulon, who didn't eat

with us, he didn't care a farthing for the knights' nobility no mine, but

took precedence in the talk whenever it suited him, which was all the

time, because he was born that way. He said:

"God be thanked, we found the army in admirable condition I think I have

never seen a finer body of animals."

"Animals!" said Miss Catherine.

"I will explain to you what he means," said Noel. "He--"

"I will trouble you not to trouble yourself to explain anything for me,"

said the Paladin, loftily. "I have reason to think--"

"That is his way," said Noel; "always when he thinks he has reason to

think, he thinks he does think, but this is an error. He didn't see the

army. I noticed him, and he didn't see it. He was troubled by his old

complaint."

"What s his old complaint?" Catherine asked.

"Prudence," I said, seeing my chance to help.

But it was not a fortunate remark, for the Paladin said:

"It probably isn't your turn to criticize people's prudence--you who fall

out of the saddle when a donkey brays."

They all laughed, and I was ashamed of myself for my hasty smartness. I

said:

"It isn't quite fair for you to say I fell out on account of the donkey's

braying. It was emotion, just ordinary emotion."

"Very well, if you want to call it that, I am not objecting. What would

you call it, Sir Bertrand?"

"Well, it--well, whatever it was, it was excusable, I think. All of you

have learned how to behave in hot hand-to-hand engagements, and you don't

need to be ashamed of your record in that matter; but to walk along in

front of death, with one's hands idle, and no noise, no music, and

nothing going on, is a very trying situation. If I were you, De Conte, I

would name the emotion; it's nothing to be ashamed of."

It was as straight and sensible a speech as ever I heard, and I was

grateful for the opening it gave me; so I came out and said:

"It was fear--and thank you for the honest idea, too."

"It was the cleanest and best way out," said the old treasurer; "you've

done well, my lad."

That made me comfortable, and when Miss Catherine said, "It's what I

think, too," I was grateful to myself for getting into that scrape.

Sir Jean de Metz said:

"We were all in a body together when the donkey brayed, and it was

dismally still at the time. I don't see how any young campaigner could

escape some little touch of that emotion."

He looked about him with a pleasant expression of inquiry on his good

face, and as each pair of eyes in turn met his head they were in nodded a

confession. Even the Paladin delivered his nod. That surprised everybody,

and saved the Standard-Bearer's credit. It was clever of him; nobody

believed he could tell the truth that way without practice, or would tell

that particular sort of a truth either with or without practice. I

suppose he judged it would favorably impress the family. Then the old

treasurer said:

"Passing the forts in that trying way required the same sort of nerve

that a person must have when ghosts are about him in the dark, I should

think. What does the Standard-Bearer think?"

"Well, I don't quite know about that, sir. I've often thought I would

like to see a ghost if I--"

"Would you?" exclaimed the young lady. "We've got one! Would you try that

one? Will you?"

She was so eager and pretty that the Paladin said straight out that he

would; and then as none of the rest had bravery enough to expose the fear

that was in him, one volunteered after the other with a prompt mouth and

a sick heart till all were shipped for the voyage; then the girl clapped

her hands in glee, and the parents were gratified, too, saying that the

ghosts of their house had been a dread and a misery to them and their

forebears for generations, and nobody had ever been found yet who was

willing to confront them and find out what their trouble was, so that the

family could heal it and content the poor specters and beguile them to

tranquillity and peace.

Chapter 18 Joan's First Battle-Field

ABOUT NOON I was chatting with Madame Boucher; nothing was going on, all

was quiet, when Catherine Boucher suddenly entered in great excitement,

and said:

"Fly, sir, fly! The Maid was doing in her chair in my room, when she

sprang up and cried out, 'French blood is flowing!--my arms, give me my

arms!' Her giant was on guard at the door, and he brought D'Aulon, who

began to arm her, and I and the giant have been warning the staff.

Fly!--and stay by her; and if there really is a battle, keep her out of

it--don't let her risk herself--there is no need--if the men know she is

near and looking on, it is all that is necessary. Keep her out of the

fight--don't fail of this!"

I started on a run, saying, sarcastically--for I was always fond of

sarcasm, and it was said that I had a most neat gift that way:

"Oh, yes, nothing easier than that--I'll attend to it!"

At the furthest end of the house I met Joan, fully armed, hurrying toward

the door, and she said:

"Ah, French blood is being spilt, and you did not tell me."

"Indeed I did not know it," I said; "there are no sounds of war;

everything is quiet, your Excellency."

"You will hear war-sounds enough in a moment," she said, and was gone.

It was true. Before one could count five there broke upon the stillness

the swelling rush and tramp of an approaching multitude of men and

horses, with hoarse cries of command; and then out of the distance came

the muffled deep boom!--boom-boom!--boom! of cannon, and straightway that

rushing multitude was roaring by the house like a hurricane.

Our knights and all our staff came flying, armed, but with no horses

ready, and we burst out after Joan in a body, the Paladin in the lead

with the banner. The surging crowd was made up half of citizens and half

of soldiers, and had no recognized leader. When Joan was seen a huzza

went up, and she shouted:

"A horse--a horse!"

A dozen saddles were at her disposal in a moment. She mounted, a hundred

people shouting:

"Way, there--way for the MAID OF ORLEANS!" The first time that that

immortal name was ever uttered--and I, praise God, was there to hear it!

The mass divided itself like the waters of the Red Sea, and down this

lane Joan went skimming like a bird, crying, "Forward, French

hearts--follow me!" and we came winging in her wake on the rest of the

borrowed horses, the holy standard streaming above us, and the lane

closing together in our rear.

This was a different thing from the ghastly march past the dismal

bastilles. No, we felt fine, now, and all awhirl with enthusiasm. The

explanation of this sudden uprising was this. The city and the little

garrison, so long hopeless and afraid, had gone wild over Joan's coming,

and could no longer restrain their desire to get at the enemy; so,

without orders from anybody, a few hundred soldiers and citizens had

plunged out at the Burgundy gate on a sudden impulse and made a charge on

one of Lord Talbot's most formidable fortresses--St. Loup--and were

getting the worst of it. The news of this had swept through the city and

started this new crowd that we were with.

As we poured out at the gate we met a force bringing in the wounded from

the front. The sight moved Joan, and she said:

"Ah, French blood; it makes my hair rise to see it!"

We were soon on the field, soon in the midst of the turmoil. Joan was

seeing her first real battle, and so were we.

It was a battle in the open field; for the garrison of St. Loup had

sallied confidently out to meet the attack, being used to victories when

"witches" were not around. The sally had been reinforced by troops from

the "Paris" bastille, and when we approached the French were getting

whipped and were falling back. But when Joan came charging through the

disorder with her banner displayed, crying "Forward, men--follow me!"

there was a change; the French turned about and surged forward like a

solid wave of the sea, and swept the English before them, hacking and

slashing, and being hacked and slashed, in a way that was terrible to

see.

In the field the Dwarf had no assignment; that is to say, he was not

under orders to occupy any particular place, therefore he chose his place

for himself, and went ahead of Joan and made a road for her. It was

horrible to see the iron helmets fly into fragments under his dreadful

ax. He called it cracking nuts, and it looked like that. He made a good

road, and paved it well with flesh and iron. Joan and the rest of us

followed it so briskly that we outspeeded our forces and had the English

behind us as well as before. The knights commanded us to face outward

around Joan, which we did, and then there was work done that was fine to

see. One was obliged to respect the Paladin, now. Being right under

Joan's exalting and transforming eye, he forgot his native prudence, he

forgot his diffidence in the presence of danger, he forgot what fear was,

and he never laid about him in his imaginary battles in a more tremendous

way that he did in this real one; and wherever he struck there was an

enemy the less.

We were in that close place only a few minutes; then our forces to the

rear broke through with a great shout and joined us, and then the English

fought a retreating fight, but in a fine and gallant way, and we drove

them to their fortress foot by foot, they facing us all the time, and

their reserves on the walls raining showers of arrows, cross-bow bolts,

and stone cannon-balls upon us.

The bulk of the enemy got safely within the works and left us outside

with piles of French and English dead and wounded for company--a

sickening sight, an awful sight to us youngsters, for our little ambush

fights in February had been in the night, and the blood and the

mutilations and the dead faces were mercifully dim, whereas we saw these

things now for the first time in all their naked ghastliness.

Now arrived Dunois from the city, and plunged through the battle on his

foam-flecked horse and galloped up to Joan, saluting, and uttering

handsome compliments as he came. He waved his hand toward the distant

walls of the city, where a multitude of flags were flaunting gaily in the

wind, and said the populace were up there observing her fortunate

performance and rejoicing over it, and added that she and the forces

would have a great reception now.

"Now? Hardly now, Bastard. Not yet!"

"Why not yet? Is there more to be done?"

"More, Bastard? We have but begun! We will take this fortress."

"Ah, you can't be serious! We can't take this place; let me urge you not

to make the attempt; it is too desperate. Let me order the forces back."

Joan's heart was overflowing with the joys and enthusiasms of war, and it

made her impatient to hear such talk. She cried out:

"Bastard, Bastard, will ye play always with these English? Now verily I

tell you we will not budge until this place is ours. We will carry it by

storm. Sound the charge!"

"Ah, my General--"

"Waste no more time, man--let the bugles sound the assault!" and we saw

that strange deep light in her eye which we named the battle-light, and

learned to know so well in later fields.

The martial notes pealed out, the troops answered with a yell, and down

they came against that formidable work, whose outlines were lost in its

own cannon-smoke, and whose sides were spouting flame and thunder.

We suffered repulse after repulse, but Joan was here and there and

everywhere encouraging the men, and she kept them to their work. During

three hours the tide ebbed and flowed, flowed and ebbed; but at last La

Hire, who was now come, made a final and resistless charge, and the

bastille St. Loup was ours. We gutted it, taking all its stores and

artillery, and then destroyed it.

When all our host was shouting itself hoarse with rejoicings, and there

went up a cry for the General, for they wanted to praise her and glorify

her and do her homage for her victory, we had trouble to find her; and

when we did find her, she was off by herself, sitting among a ruck of

corpses, with her face in her hands, crying--for she was a young girl,

you know, and her hero heart was a young girl's heart too, with the pity

and the tenderness that are natural to it. She was thinking of the

mothers of those dead friends and enemies.

Among the prisoners were a number of priests, and Joan took these under

her protection and saved their lives. It was urged that they were most

probably combatants in disguise, but she said:

"As to that, how can any tell? They wear the livery of God, and if even

one of these wears it rightfully, surely it were better that all the

guilty should escape than that we have upon our hands the blood of that

innocent man. I will lodge them where I lodge, and feed them, and sent

them away in safety."

We marched back to the city with our crop of cannon and prisoners on view

and our banners displayed. Here was the first substantial bit of war-work

the imprisoned people had seen in the seven months that the siege had

endured, the first chance they had had to rejoice over a French exploit.

You may guess that they made good use of it. They and the bells went mad.

Joan was their darling now, and the press of people struggling and

shouldering each other to get a glimpse of her was so great that we could

hardly push our way through the streets at all. Her new name had gone all

about, and was on everybody's lips. The Holy Maid of Vaucouleurs was a

forgotten title; the city had claimed her for its own, and she was the

MAID OF ORLEANS now. It is a happiness to me to remember that I heard

that name the first time it was ever uttered. Between that first

utterance and the last time it will be uttered on this earth--ah, think

how many moldering ages will lie in that gap!

The Boucher family welcomed her back as if she had been a child of the

house, and saved from death against all hope or probability. They chided

her for going into the battle and exposing herself to danger during all

those hours. They could not realize that she had meant to carry her

warriorship so far, and asked her if it had really been her purpose to go

right into the turmoil of the fight, or hadn't she got swept into it by

accident and the rush of the troops? They begged her to be more careful

another time. It was good advice, maybe, but it fell upon pretty

unfruitful soil.

Chapter 19 We Burst In Upon Ghosts

BEING WORN out with the long fight, we all slept the rest of the

afternoon away and two or three hours into the night. Then we got up

refreshed, and had supper. As for me, I could have been willing to let

the matter of the ghost drop; and the others were of a like mind, no

doubt, for they talked diligently of the battle and said nothing of that

other thing. And indeed it was fine and stirring to hear the Paladin

rehearse his deeds and see him pile his dead, fifteen here, eighteen

there, and thirty-five yonder; but this only postponed the trouble; it

could not do more. He could not go on forever; when he had carried the

bastille by assault and eaten up the garrison there was nothing for it

but to stop, unless Catherine Boucher would give him a new start and have

it all done over again--as we hoped she would, this time--but she was

otherwise minded. As soon as there was a good opening and a fair chance,

she brought up her unwelcome subject, and we faced it the best we could.

We followed her and her parents to the haunted room at eleven o'clock,

with candles, and also with torches to place in the sockets on the walls.

It was a big house, with very thick walls, and this room was in a remote

part of it which had been left unoccupied for nobody knew how many years,

because of its evil repute.

This was a large room, like a salon, and had a big table in it of

enduring oak and well preserved; but the chair were worm-eaten and the

tapestry on the walls was rotten and discolored by age. The dusty cobwebs

under the ceiling had the look of not having had any business for a

century.

Catherine said:

"Tradition says that these ghosts have never been seen--they have merely

been heard. It is plain that this room was once larger than it is now,

and that the wall at this end was built in some bygone time to make and

fence off a narrow room there. There is no communication anywhere with

that narrow room, and if it exists--and of that there is no reasonable

doubt--it has no light and no air, but is an absolute dungeon. Wait where

you are, and take note of what happens."

That was all. Then she and her parents left us. When their footfalls had

died out in the distance down the empty stone corridors an uncanny

silence and solemnity ensued which was dismaler to me than the mute march

past the bastilles. We sat looking vacantly at each other, and it was

easy to see that no one there was comfortable. The longer we sat so, the

more deadly still that stillness got to be; and when the wind began to

moan around the house presently, it made me sick and miserable, and I

wished I had been brave enough to be a coward this time, for indeed it is

no proper shame to be afraid of ghosts, seeing how helpless the living

are in their hands. And then these ghosts were invisible, which made the

matter the worse, as it seemed to me. They might be in the room with us

at that moment--we could not know. I felt airy touches on my shoulders

and my hair, and I shrank from them and cringed, and was not ashamed to

show this fear, for I saw the others doing the like, and knew that they

were feeling those faint contacts too. As this went on--oh, eternities it

seemed, the time dragged so drearily--all those faces became as wax, and

I seemed sitting with a congress of the dead.

At last, faint and far and weird and slow, came a

"boom!--boom!--boom!"--a distant bell tolling midnight. When the last

stroke died, that depressing stillness followed again, and as before I

was staring at those waxen faces and feeling those airy touches on my

hair and my shoulders once more.

One minute--two minutes--three minutes of this, then we heard a long deep

groan, and everybody sprang up and stood, with his legs quaking. It came

from that little dungeon. There was a pause, then we herd muffled

sobbings, mixed with pitiful ejaculations. Then there was a second voice,

low and not distinct, and the one seemed trying to comfort the other; and

so the two voices went on, with moanings, and soft sobbings, and, ah, the

tones were so full of compassion and sorry and despair! Indeed, it made

one's heart sore to hear it.

But those sounds were so real and so human and so moving that the idea of

ghosts passed straight out of our minds, and Sir Jean de Metz spoke out

and said:

"Come! we will smash that wall and set those poor captives free. Here,

with your ax!"

The Dwarf jumped forward, swinging his great ax with both hands, and

others sprang for torches and brought them.

Bang!--whang!--slam!--smash went the ancient bricks, and there was a hole

an ox could pass through. We plunged within and held up the torches.

Nothing there but vacancy! On the floor lay a rusty sword and a rotten

fan.

Now you know all that I know. Take the pathetic relics, and weave about

them the romance of the dungeon's long-vanished inmates as best you can.

Chapter 20 Joan Makes Cowards Brave Victors

THE NEXT day Joan wanted to go against the enemy again, but it was the

feast of the Ascension, and the holy council of bandit generals were too

pious to be willing to profane it with bloodshed. But privately they

profaned it with plottings, a sort of industry just in their line. They

decided to do the only thing proper to do now in the new circumstances of

the case--feign an attack on the most important bastille on the Orleans

side, and then, if the English weakened the far more important fortresses

on the other side of the river to come to its help, cross in force and

capture those works. This would give them the bridge and free

communication with the Sologne, which was French territory. They decided

to keep this latter part of the program secret from Joan.

Joan intruded and took them by surprise. She asked them what they were

about and what they had resolved upon. They said they had resolved to

attack the most important of the English bastilles on the Orleans side

next morning--and there the spokesman stopped. Joan said:

"Well, go on."

"There is nothing more. That is all."

"Am I to believe this? That is to say, am I to believe that you have lost

your wits?" She turned to Dunois, and said, "Bastard, you have sense,

answer me this: if this attack is made and the bastille taken, how much

better off would we be than we are now?"

The Bastard hesitated, and then began some rambling talk not quite

germane to the question. Joan interrupted him and said:

"That will not do, good Bastard, you have answered. Since the Bastard is

not able to mention any advantage to be gained by taking that bastille

and stopping there, it is not likely that any of you could better the

matter. You waste much time here in inventing plans that lead to nothing,

and making delays that are a damage. Are you concealing something from

me? Bastard, this council has a general plan, I take it; without going

into details, what is it?"

"It is the same it was in the beginning, seven months ago--to get

provisions for a long siege, then sit down and tire the English out."

"In the name of God! As if seven months was not enough, you want to

provide for a year of it. Now ye shall drop these pusillanimous

dreams--the English shall go in three days!"

Several exclaimed:

"Ah, General, General, be prudent!"

"Be prudent and starve? Do ye call that war? I tell you this, if you do

not already know it: The new circumstances have changed the face of

matters. The true point of attack has shifted; it is on the other side of

the river now. One must take the fortifications that command the bridge.

The English know that if we are not fools and cowards we will try to do

that. They are grateful for your piety in wasting this day. They will

reinforce the bridge forts from this side to-night, knowing what ought to

happen to-morrow. You have but lost a day and made our task harder, for

we will cross and take the bridge forts. Bastard, tell me the truth--does

not this council know that there is no other course for us than the one I

am speaking of?"

Dunois conceded that the council did know it to be the most desirable,

but considered it impracticable; and he excused the council as well as he

could by saying that inasmuch as nothing was really and rationally to be

hoped for but a long continuance of the siege and wearying out of the

English, they were naturally a little afraid of Joan's impetuous notions.

He said:

"You see, we are sure that the waiting game is the best, whereas you

would carry everything by storm."

"That I would!--and moreover that I will! You have my orders--here and

now. We will move upon the forts of the south bank to-morrow at dawn."

"And carry them by storm?"

"Yes, carry them by storm!"

La Hire came clanking in, and heard the last remark. He cried out:

"By my baton, that is the music I love to hear! Yes, that is the right

time and the beautiful words, my General--we will carry them by storm!"

He saluted in his large way and came up and shook Joan by the hand.

Some member of the council was heard to say:

"It follows, then, that we must begin with the bastille St. John, and

that will give the English time to--"

Joan turned and said:

"Give yourselves no uneasiness about the bastille St. John. The English

will know enough to retire from it and fall back on the bridge bastilles

when they see us coming." She added, with a touch of sarcasm, "Even a

war-council would know enough to do that itself."

Then she took her leave. La Hire made this general remark to the council:

"She is a child, and that is all ye seem to see. Keep to that

superstition if you must, but you perceive that this child understands

this complex game of war as well as any of you; and if you want my

opinion without the trouble of asking for it, here you have it without

ruffles or embroidery--by God, I think she can teach the best of you how

to play it!"

Joan had spoken truly; the sagacious English saw that the policy of the

French had undergone a revolution; that the policy of paltering and

dawdling was ended; that in place of taking blows, blows were ready to be

struck now; therefore they made ready for the new state of things by

transferring heavy reinforcements to the bastilles of the south bank from

those of the north.

The city learned the great news that once more in French history, after

all these humiliating years, France was going to take the offensive; that

France, so used to retreating, was going to advance; that France, so long

accustomed to skulking, was going to face about and strike. The joy of

the people passed all bounds. The city walls were black with them to see

the army march out in the morning in that strange new position--its

front, not its tail, toward an English camp. You shall imagine for

yourselves what the excitement was like and how it expressed itself, when

Joan rode out at the head of the host with her banner floating above her.

We crossed the five in strong force, and a tedious long job it was, for

the boats were small and not numerous. Our landing on the island of St.

Aignan was not disputed. We threw a bridge of a few boats across the

narrow channel thence to the south shore and took up our march in good

order and unmolested; for although there was a fortress there--St.

John--the English vacated and destroyed it and fell back on the bridge

forts below as soon as our first boats were seen to leave the Orleans

shore; which was what Joan had said would happen, when she was disputing

with the council.

We moved down the shore and Joan planted her standard before the bastille

of the Augustins, the first of the formidable works that protected the

end of the bridge. The trumpets sounded the assault, and two charges

followed in handsome style; but we were too weak, as yet, for our main

body was still lagging behind. Before we could gather for a third assault

the garrison of St. Prive were seen coming up to reinforce the big

bastille. They came on a run, and the Augustins sallied out, and both

forces came against us with a rush, and sent our small army flying in a

panic, and followed us, slashing and slaying, and shouting jeers and

insults at us.

Joan was doing her best to rally the men, but their wits were gone, their

hearts were dominated for the moment by the old-time dread of the

English. Joan's temper flamed up, and she halted and commanded the

trumpets to sound the advance. Then she wheeled about and cried out:

"If there is but a dozen of you that are not cowards, it is

enough--follow me!"

Away she went, and after her a few dozen who had heard her words and been

inspired by them. The pursuing force was astonished to see her sweeping

down upon them with this handful of men, and it was their turn now to

experience a grisly fright--surely this is a witch, this is a child of

Satan! That was their thought--and without stopping to analyze the matter

they turned and fled in a panic.

Our flying squadrons heard the bugle and turned to look; and when they

saw the Maid's banner speeding in the other direction and the enemy

scrambling ahead of it in disorder, their courage returned and they came

scouring after us.

La Hire heard it and hurried his force forward and caught up with us just

as we were planting our banner again before the ramparts of the

Augustins. We were strong enough now. We had a long and tough piece of

work before us, but we carried it through before night, Joan keeping us

hard at it, and she and La Hire saying we were able to take that big

bastille, and must. The English fought like--well, they fought like the

English; when that is said, there is no more to say. We made assault

after assault, through the smoke and flame and the deafening

cannon-blasts, and at last as the sun was sinking we carried the place

with a rush, and planted our standard on its walls.

The Augustins was ours. The Tourelles must be ours, too, if we would free

the bridge and raise the siege. We had achieved one great undertaking,

Joan was determined to accomplish the other. We must lie on our arms

where we were, hold fast to what we had got, and be ready for business in

the morning. So Joan was not minded to let the men be demoralized by

pillage and riot and carousings; she had the Augustins burned, with all

its stores in it, excepting the artillery and ammunition.

Everybody was tired out with this long day's hard work, and of course

this was the case with Joan; still, she wanted to stay with the army

before the Tourelles, to be ready for the assault in the morning. The

chiefs argued with her, and at last persuaded her to go home and prepare

for the great work by taking proper rest, and also by having a leech look

to a wound which she had received in her foot. So we crossed with them

and went home.

Just as usual, we found the town in a fury of joy, all the bells

clanging, everybody shouting, and several people drunk. We never went out

or came in without furnishing good and sufficient reasons for one of

these pleasant tempests, and so the tempest was always on hand. There had

been a blank absence of reasons for this sort of upheavals for the past

seven months, therefore the people too to the upheavals with all the more

relish on that account.

Chapter 21 She Gently Reproves Her Dear Friend

TO GET away from the usual crowd of visitors and have a rest, Joan went

with Catherine straight to the apartment which the two occupied together,

and there they took their supper and there the wound was dressed. But

then, instead of going to bed, Joan, weary as she was, sent the Dwarf for

me, in spite of Catherine's protests and persuasions. She said she had

something on her mind, and must send a courier to Domremy with a letter

for our old Pere Fronte to read to her mother. I came, and she began to

dictate. After some loving words and greetings to her mother and family,

came this:

"But the thing which moves me to write now, is to say that when you

presently hear that I am wounded, you shall give yourself no concern

about it, and refuse faith to any that shall try to make you believe it

is serious."

She was going on, when Catherine spoke up and said:

"Ah, but it will fright her so to read these words. Strike them out,

Joan, strike them out, and wait only one day--two days at most--then

write and say your foot was wounded but is well again--for it surely be

well then, or very near it. Don't distress her, Joan; do as I say."

A laugh like the laugh of the old days, the impulsive free laugh of an

untroubled spirit, a laugh like a chime of bells, was Joan's answer; then

she said:

"My foot? Why should I write about such a scratch as that? I was not

thinking of it, dear heart."

"Child, have you another wound and a worse, and have not spoken of it?

What have you been dreaming about, that you--"

She had jumped up, full of vague fears, to have the leech called back at

once, but Joan laid her hand upon her arm and made her sit down again,

saying:

"There, now, be tranquil, there is no other wound, as yet; I am writing

about one which I shall get when we storm that bastille tomorrow."

Catherine had the look of one who is trying to understand a puzzling

proposition but cannot quite do it. She said, in a distraught fashion:

"A wound which you are going to get? But--but why grieve your mother when

it--when it may not happen?"

"May not? Why, it will."

The puzzle was a puzzle still. Catherine said in that same abstracted way

as before:

"Will. It is a strong word. I cannot seem to--my mind is not able to take

hold of this. Oh, Joan, such a presentiment is a dreadful thing--it takes

one's peace and courage all away. Cast it from you!--drive it out! It

will make your whole night miserable, and to no good; for we will hope--"

"But it isn't a presentiment--it is a fact. And it will not make me

miserable. It is uncertainties that do that, but this is not an

uncertainty."

"Joan, do you know it is going to happen?"

"Yes, I know it. My Voices told me."

"Ah," said Catherine, resignedly, "if they told you-- But are you sure it

was they?--quite sure?"

"Yes, quite. It will happen--there is no doubt."

"It is dreadful! Since when have you know it?"

"Since--I think it is several weeks." Joan turned to me. "Louis, you will

remember. How long is it?"

"Your Excellency spoke of it first to the King, in Chinon," I answered;

"that was as much as seven weeks ago. You spoke of it again the 20th of

April, and also the 22d, two weeks ago, as I see by my record here."

These marvels disturbed Catherine profoundly, but I had long ceased to be

surprised at them. One can get used to anything in this world. Catherine

said:

"And it is to happen to-morrow?--always to-morrow? Is it the same date

always? There has been no mistake, and no confusion?"

"No," Joan said, "the 7th of May is the date--there is no other."

"Then you shall not go a step out of this house till that awful day is

gone by! You will not dream of it, Joan, will you?--promise that you will

stay with us."

But Joan was not persuaded. She said:

"It would not help the matter, dear good friend. The wound is to come,

and come to-morrow. If I do not seek it, it will seek me. My duty calls

me to that place to-morrow; I should have to go if my death were waiting

for me there; shall I stay away for only a wound? Oh, no, we must try to

do better than that."

"Then you are determined to go?"

"Of a certainty, yes. There is only one thing that I can do for

France--hearten her soldiers for battle and victory." She thought a

moment, then added, "However, one should not be unreasonable, and I would

do much to please you, who are so good to me. Do you love France?"

I wondered what she might be contriving now, but I saw no clue. Catherine

said, reproachfully:

"Ah, what have I done to deserve this question?"

"Then you do love France. I had not doubted it, dear. Do not be hurt, but

answer me--have you ever told a lie?"

"In my life I have not wilfully told a lie--fibs, but no lies."

"That is sufficient. You love France and do not tell lies; therefore I

will trust you. I will go or I will stay, as you shall decide."

"Oh, I thank you from my heart, Joan! How good and dear it is of you to

do this for me! Oh, you shall stay, and not go!"

In her delight she flung her arms about Joan's neck and squandered

endearments upon her the least of which would have made me rich, but, as

it was, they only made me realize how poor I was--how miserably poor in

what I would most have prized in this world. Joan said:

"Then you will send word to my headquarters that I am not going?"

"Oh, gladly. Leave that to me."

"It is good of you. And how will you word it?--for it must have proper

official form. Shall I word it for you?"

"Oh, do--for you know about these solemn procedures and stately

proprieties, and I have had no experience."

"Then word it like this: 'The chief of staff is commanded to make known

to the King's forces in garrison and in the field, that the

General-in-Chief of the Armies of France will not face the English on the

morrow, she being afraid she may get hurt. Signed, JOAN OF ARC, by the

hand of CATHERINE BOUCHER, who loves France.'"

There was a pause--a silence of the sort that tortures one into stealing

a glance to see how the situation looks, and I did that. There was a

loving smile on Joan's face, but the color was mounting in crimson waves

into Catherine's, and her lips were quivering and the tears gathering;

then she said:

"Oh, I am so ashamed of myself!--and you are so noble and brave and wise,

and I am so paltry--so paltry and such a fool!" and she broke down and

began to cry, and I did so want to take her in my arms and comfort her,

but Joan did it, and of course I said nothing. Joan did it well, and most

sweetly and tenderly, but I could have done it as well, though I knew it

would be foolish and out of place to suggest such a thing, and might make

an awkwardness, too, and be embarrassing to us all, so I did not offer,

and I hope I did right and for the best, though I could not know, and was

many times tortured with doubts afterward as having perhaps let a chance

pass which might have changed all my life and made it happier and more

beautiful than, alas, it turned out to be. For this reason I grieve yet,

when I think of that scene, and do not like to call it up out of the

deeps of my memory because of the pangs it brings.

Well, well, a good and wholesome thing is a little harmless fun in this

world; it tones a body up and keeps him human and prevents him from

souring. To set that little trap for Catherine was as good and effective

a way as any to show her what a grotesque thing she was asking of Joan.

It was a funny idea now, wasn't it, when you look at it all around? Even

Catherine dried up her tears and laughed when she thought of the English

getting hold of the French Commander-in-Chief's reason for staying out of

a battle. She granted that they could have a good time over a thing like

that.

We got to work on the letter again, and of course did not have to strike

out the passage about the wound. Joan was in fine spirits; but when she

got to sending messages to this, that, and the other playmate and friend,

it brought our village and the Fairy Tree and the flowery plain and the

browsing sheep and all the peaceful beauty of our old humble home-place

back, and the familiar names began to tremble on her lips; and when she

got to Haumette and Little Mengette it was no use, her voice broke and

she couldn't go on. She waited a moment, then said:

"Give them my love--my warm love--my deep love--oh, out of my heart of

hearts! I shall never see our home any more."

Now came Pasquerel, Joan's confessor, and introduced a gallant knight,

the Sire de Rais, who had been sent with a message. He said he was

instructed to say that the council had decided that enough had been done

for the present; that it would be safest and best to be content with what

God had already done; that the city was now well victualed and able to

stand a long siege; that the wise course must necessarily be to withdraw

the troops from the other side of the river and resume the

defensive--therefore they had decided accordingly.

"The incurable cowards!" exclaimed Joan. "So it was to get me away from

my men that they pretended so much solicitude about my fatigue. Take this

message back, not to the council--I have no speeches for those disguised

ladies' maids--but to the Bastard and La Hire, who are men. Tell them the

army is to remain where it is, and I hold them responsible if this

command miscarries. And say the offensive will be resumed in the morning.

You may go, good sir."

Then she said to her priest:

"Rise early, and be by me all the day. There will be much work on my

hands, and I shall be hurt between my neck and my shoulder."

Chapter 22 The Fate of France Decided

WE WERE up at dawn, and after mass we started. In the hall we met the

master of the house, who was grieved, good man, to see Joan going

breakfastless to such a day's work, and begged her to wait and eat, but

she couldn't afford the time--that is to say, she couldn't afford the

patience, she being in such a blaze of anxiety to get at that last

remaining bastille which stood between her and the completion of the

first great step in the rescue and redemption of France. Boucher put in

another plea:

"But think--we poor beleaguered citizens who have hardly known the flavor

of fish for these many months, have spoil of that sort again, and we owe

it to you. There's a noble shad for breakfast; wait--be persuaded."

Joan said:

"Oh, there's going to be fish in plenty; when this day's work is done the

whole river-front will be yours to do as you please with."

"Ah, your Excellency will do well, that I know; but we don't require

quite that much, even of you; you shall have a month for it in place of a

day. Now be beguiled--wait and eat. There's a saying that he that would

cross a river twice in the same day in a boat, will do well to eat fish

for luck, lest he have an accident."

"That doesn't fit my case, for to-day I cross but once in a boat."

"Oh, don't say that. Aren't you coming back to us?"

"Yes, but not in a boat."

"How, then?"

"By the bridge."

"Listen to that--by the bridge! Now stop this jesting, dear General, and

do as I would have done you. It's a noble fish."

"Be good then, and save me some for supper; and I will bring one of those

Englishmen with me and he shall have his share."

"Ah, well, have your way if you must. But he that fasts must attempt but

little and stop early. When shall you be back?"

"When we've raised the siege of Orleans. FORWARD!"

We were off. The streets were full of citizens and of groups and squads

of soldiers, but the spectacle was melancholy. There was not a smile

anywhere, but only universal gloom. It was as if some vast calamity had

smitten all hope and cheer dead. We were not used to this, and were

astonished. But when they saw the Maid, there was an immediate stir, and

the eager question flew from mouth to mouth.

"Where is she going? Whither is she bound?"

Joan heard it, and called out:

"Whither would ye suppose? I am going to take the Tourelles."

It would not be possible for any to describe how those few words turned

that mourning into joy--into exaltation--into frenzy; and how a storm of

huzzas burst out and swept down the streets in every direction and woke

those corpse-like multitudes to vivid life and action and turmoil in a

moment. The soldiers broke from the crowd and came flocking to our

standard, and many of the citizens ran and got pikes and halberds and

joined us. As we moved on, our numbers increased steadily, and the

hurrahing continued--yes, we moved through a solid cloud of noise, as you

may say, and all the windows on both sides contributed to it, for they

were filled with excited people.

You see, the council had closed the Burgundy gate and placed a strong

force there, under that stout soldier Raoul de Gaucourt, Bailly of

Orleans, with orders to prevent Joan from getting out and resuming the

attack on the Tourelles, and this shameful thing had plunged the city

into sorrow and despair. But that feeling was gone now. They believed the

Maid was a match for the council, and they were right.

When we reached the gate, Joan told Gaucourt to open it and let her pass.

He said it would be impossible to do this, for his orders were from the

council and were strict. Joan said:

"There is no authority above mine but the King's. If you have an order

from the King, produce it."

"I cannot claim to have an order from him, General."

"Then make way, or take the consequences!"

He began to argue the case, for he was like the rest of the tribe, always

ready to fight with words, not acts; but in the midst of his gabble Joan

interrupted with the terse order:

"Charge!"

We came with a rush, and brief work we made of that small job. It was

good to see the Bailly's surprise. He was not used to this unsentimental

promptness. He said afterward that he was cut off in the midst of what he

was saying--in the midst of an argument by which he could have proved

that he could not let Joan pass--an argument which Joan could not have

answered.

"Still, it appears she did answer it," said the person he was talking to.

We swung through the gate in great style, with a vast accession of noise,

the most of which was laughter, and soon our van was over the river and

moving down against the Tourelles.

First we must take a supporting work called a boulevard, and which was

otherwise nameless, before we could assault the great bastille. Its rear

communicated with the bastille by a drawbridge, under which ran a swift

and deep strip of the Loire. The boulevard was strong, and Dunois doubted

our ability to take it, but Joan had no such doubt. She pounded it with

artillery all the forenoon, then about noon she ordered an assault and

led it herself. We poured into the fosse through the smoke and a tempest

of missiles, and Joan, shouting encouragements to her men, started to

climb a scaling-ladder, when that misfortune happened which we knew was

to happen--the iron bolt from an arbaquest struck between her neck and

her shoulder, and tore its way down through her armor. When she felt the

sharp pain and saw her blood gushing over her breast, she was frightened,

poor girl, and as she sank to the ground she began to cry bitterly.

The English sent up a glad shout and came surging down in strong force to

take her, and then for a few minutes the might of both adversaries was

concentrated upon that spot. Over her and above her, English and French

fought with desperation--for she stood for France, indeed she was France

to both sides--whichever won her won France, and could keep it forever.

Right there in that small spot, and in ten minutes by the clock, the fate

of France, for all time, was to be decided, and was decided.

If the English had captured Joan then, Charles VII. would have flown the

country, the Treaty of Troyes would have held good, and France, already

English property, would have become, without further dispute, an English

province, to so remain until Judgment Day. A nationality and a kingdom

were at stake there, and no more time to decide it in than it takes to

hard-boil an egg. It was the most momentous ten minutes that the clock

has ever ticked in France, or ever will. Whenever you read in histories

about hours or days or weeks in which the fate of one or another nation

hung in the balance, do not you fail to remember, nor your French hearts

to beat the quicker for the remembrance, the ten minutes that France,

called otherwise Joan of Arc, lay bleeding in the fosse that day, with

two nations struggling over her for her possession.

And you will not forget the Dwarf. For he stood over her, and did the

work of any six of the others. He swung his ax with both hands; whenever

it came down, he said those two words, "For France!" and a splintered

helmet flew like eggshells, and the skull that carried it had learned its

manners and would offend the French no more. He piled a bulwark of

iron-clad dead in front of him and fought from behind it; and at last

when the victory was ours we closed about him, shielding him, and he ran

up a ladder with Joan as easily as another man would carry a child, and

bore her out of the battle, a great crowd following and anxious, for she

was drenched with blood to her feet, half of it her own and the other

half English, for bodies had fallen across her as she lay and had poured

their red life-streams over her. One couldn't see the white armor now,

with that awful dressing over it.

The iron bolt was still in the wound--some say it projected out behind

the shoulder. It may be--I did not wish to see, and did not try to. It

was pulled out, and the pain made Joan cry again, poor thing. Some say

she pulled it out herself because others refused, saying they could not

bear to hurt her. As to this I do not know; I only know it was pulled

out, and that the wound was treated with oil and properly dressed.

Joan lay on the grass, weak and suffering, hour after hour, but still

insisting that the fight go on. Which it did, but not to much purpose,

for it was only under her eye that men were heroes and not afraid. They

were like the Paladin; I think he was afraid of his shadow--I mean in the

afternoon, when it was very big and long; but when he was under Joan's

eye and the inspiration of her great spirit, what was he afraid of?

Nothing in this world--and that is just the truth.

Toward night Dunois gave it up. Joan heard the bugles.

"What!" she cried. "Sounding the retreat!"

Her wound was forgotten in a moment. She countermanded the order, and

sent another, to the officer in command of a battery, to stand ready to

fire five shots in quick succession. This was a signal to the force on

the Orleans side of the river under La Hire, who was not, as some of the

histories say, with us. It was to be given whenever Joan should feel sure

the boulevard was about to fall into her hands--then that force must make

a counter-attack on the Tourelles by way of the bridge.

Joan mounted her horse now, with her staff about her, and when our people

saw us coming they raised a great shout, and were at once eager for

another assault on the boulevard. Joan rode straight to the fosse where

she had received her wound, and standing there in the rain of bolts and

arrows, she ordered the Paladin to let her long standard blow free, and

to note when its fringes should touch the fortress. Presently he said:

"It touches."

"Now, then," said Joan to the waiting battalions, "the place is

yours--enter in! Bugles, sound the assault! Now, then--all together--go!"

And go it was. You never saw anything like it. We swarmed up the ladders

and over the battlements like a wave--and the place was our property.

Why, one might live a thousand years and never see so gorgeous a thing as

that again. There, hand to hand, we fought like wild beasts, for there

was no give-up to those English--there was no way to convince one of

those people but to kill him, and even then he doubted. At least so it

was thought, in those days, and maintained by many.

We were busy and never heard the five cannon-shots fired, but they were

fired a moment after Joan had ordered the assault; and so, while we were

hammering and being hammered in the smaller fortress, the reserve on the

Orleans side poured across the bridge and attacked the Tourelles from

that side. A fire-boat was brought down and moored under the drawbridge

which connected the Tourelles with our boulevard; wherefore, when at last

we drove our English ahead of us and they tried to cross that drawbridge

and join their friends in the Tourelles, the burning timbers gave way

under them and emptied them in a mass into the river in their heavy

armor--and a pitiful sight it was to see brave men die such a death as

that.

"Ah, God pity them!" said Joan, and wept to see that sorrowful spectacle.

She said those gentle words and wept those compassionate tears although

one of those perishing men had grossly insulted her with a coarse name

three days before, when she had sent him a message asking him to

surrender. That was their leader, Sir Williams Glasdale, a most valorous

knight. He was clothed all in steel; so he plunged under water like a

lance, and of course came up no more.

We soon patched a sort of bridge together and threw ourselves against the

last stronghold of the English power that barred Orleans from friends and

supplies. Before the sun was quite down, Joan's forever memorable day's

work was finished, her banner floated from the fortress of the Tourelles,

her promise was fulfilled, she had raised the siege of Orleans!

The seven months' beleaguerment was ended, the thing which the first

generals of France had called impossible was accomplished; in spite of

all that the King's ministers and war-councils could do to prevent it,

this little country-maid at seventeen had carried her immortal task

through, and had done it in four days!

Good news travels fast, sometimes, as well as bad. By the time we were

ready to start homeward by the bridge the whole city of Orleans was one

red flame of bonfires, and the heavens blushed with satisfaction to see

it; and the booming and bellowing of cannon and the banging of bells

surpassed by great odds anything that even Orleans had attempted before

in the way of noise.

When we arrived--well, there is no describing that. Why, those acres of

people that we plowed through shed tears enough to raise the river; there

was not a face in the glare of those fires that hadn't tears streaming

down it; and if Joan's feet had not been protected by iron they would

have kissed them off of her. "Welcome! welcome to the Maid of Orleans!"

That was the cry; I heard it a hundred thousand times. "Welcome to our

Maid!" some of them worded it.

No other girl in all history has ever reached such a summit of glory as

Joan of Arc reached that day. And do you think it turned her head, and

that she sat up to enjoy that delicious music of homage and applause? No;

another girl would have done that, but not this one. That was the

greatest heart and the simplest that ever beat. She went straight to bed

and to sleep, like any tired child; and when the people found she was

wounded and would rest, they shut off all passage and traffic in that

region and stood guard themselves the whole night through, to see that he

slumbers were not disturbed. They said, "She has given us peace, she

shall have peace herself."

All knew that that region would be empty of English next day, and all

said that neither the present citizens nor their posterity would ever

cease to hold that day sacred to the memory of Joan of Arc. That word has

been true for more than sixty years; it will continue so always. Orleans

will never forget the 8th of May, nor ever fail to celebrate it. It is

Joan of Arc's day--and holy. [1]

[1] It is still celebrated every year with civic and military pomps and

solemnities. -- TRANSLATOR.

Chapter 23 Joan Inspires the Tawdry King

IN THE earliest dawn of morning, Talbot and his English forces evacuated

their bastilles and marched away, not stopping to burn, destroy, or carry

off anything, but leaving their fortresses just as they were,

provisioned, armed, and equipped for a long siege. It was difficult for

the people to believe that this great thing had really happened; that

they were actually free once more, and might go and come through any gate

they pleased, with none to molest or forbid; that the terrible Talbot,

that scourge of the French, that man whose mere name had been able to

annul the effectiveness of French armies, was gone, vanished,

retreating--driven away by a girl.

The city emptied itself. Out of every gate the crowds poured. They

swarmed about the English bastilles like an invasion of ants, but noisier

than those creatures, and carried off the artillery and stores, then

turned all those dozen fortresses into monster bonfires, imitation

volcanoes whose lofty columns of thick smoke seemed supporting the arch

of the sky.

The delight of the children took another form. To some of the younger

ones seven months was a sort of lifetime. They had forgotten what grass

was like, and the velvety green meadows seemed paradise to their

surprised and happy eyes after the long habit of seeing nothing but dirty

lanes and streets. It was a wonder to them--those spacious reaches of

open country to run and dance and tumble and frolic in, after their dull

and joyless captivity; so they scampered far and wide over the fair

regions on both sides of the river, and came back at eventide weary, but

laden with flowers and flushed with new health drawn from the fresh

country air and the vigorous exercise.

After the burnings, the grown folk followed Joan from church to church

and put in the day in thanksgivings for the city's deliverance, and at

night they feted her and her generals and illuminated the town, and high

and low gave themselves up to festivities and rejoicings. By the time the

populace were fairly in bed, toward dawn, we were in the saddle and away

toward Tours to report to the King.

That was a march which would have turned any one's head but Joan's. We

moved between emotional ranks of grateful country-people all the way.

They crowded about Joan to touch her feet, her horse, her armor, and they

even knelt in the road and kissed her horse's hoof-prints.

The land was full of her praises. The most illustrious chiefs of the

church wrote to the King extolling the Maid, comparing her to the saints

and heroes of the Bible, and warning him not to let "unbelief,

ingratitude, or other injustice" hinder or impair the divine help sent

through her. One might think there was a touch of prophecy in that, and

we will let it go at that; but to my mind it had its inspiration in those

great men's accurate knowledge of the King's trivial and treacherous

character.

The King had come to Tours to meet Joan. At the present day this poor

thing is called Charles the Victorious, on account of victories which

other people won for him, but in our time we had a private name for him

which described him better, and was sanctified to him by personal

deserving--Charles the Base. When we entered the presence he sat throned,

with his tinseled snobs and dandies around him. He looked like a forked

carrot, so tightly did his clothing fit him from his waist down; he wore

shoes with a rope-like pliant toe a foot long that had to be hitched up

to the knee to keep it out of the way; he had on a crimson velvet cape

that came no lower than his elbows; on his head he had a tall felt thing

like a thimble, with a feather it its jeweled band that stuck up like a

pen from an inkhorn, and from under that thimble his bush of stiff hair

stuck down to his shoulders, curving outward at the bottom, so that the

cap and the hair together made the head like a shuttlecock. All the

materials of his dress were rich, and all the colors brilliant. In his

lap he cuddled a miniature greyhound that snarled, lifting its lip and

showing its white teeth whenever any slight movement disturbed it. The

King's dandies were dressed in about the same fashion as himself, and

when I remembered that Joan had called the war-council of Orleans

"disguised ladies' maids," it reminded me of people who squander all

their money on a trifle and then haven't anything to invest when they

come across a better chance; that name ought to have been saved for these

creatures.

Joan fell on her knees before the majesty of France, and the other

frivolous animal in his lap--a sight which it pained me to see. What had

that man done for his country or for anybody in it, that she or any other

person should kneel to him? But she--she had just done the only great

deed that had been done for France in fifty years, and had consecrated it

with the libation of her blood. The positions should have been reversed.

However, to be fair, one must grant that Charles acquitted himself very

well for the most part, on that occasion--very much better than he was in

the habit of doing. He passed his pup to a courtier, and took off his cap

to Joan as if she had been a queen. Then he stepped from his throne and

raised her, and showed quite a spirited and manly joy and gratitude in

welcoming her and thanking her for her extraordinary achievement in his

service. My prejudices are of a later date than that. If he had continued

as he was at that moment, I should not have acquired them.

He acted handsomely. He said:

"You shall not kneel to me, my matchless General; you have wrought

royally, and royal courtesies are your due." Noticing that she was pale,

he said, "But you must not stand; you have lost blood for France, and

your wound is yet green--come." He led her to a seat and sat down by her.

"Now, then, speak out frankly, as to one who owes you much and freely

confesses it before all this courtly assemblage. What shall be your

reward? Name it."

I was ashamed of him. And yet that was not fair, for how could he be

expected to know this marvelous child in these few weeks, when we who

thought we had known her all her life were daily seeing the clouds

uncover some new altitudes of her character whose existence was not

suspected by us before? But we are all that way: when we know a thing we

have only scorn for other people who don't happen to know it. And I was

ashamed of these courtiers, too, for the way they licked their chops, so

to speak, as envying Joan her great chance, they not knowing her any

better than the King did. A blush began to rise in Joan's cheeks at the

thought that she was working for her country for pay, and she dropped her

head and tried to hide her face, as girls always do when they find

themselves blushing; no one knows why they do, but they do, and the more

they blush the more they fail to get reconciled to it, and the more they

can't bear to have people look at them when they are doing it. The King

made it a great deal worse by calling attention to it, which is the

unkindest thing a person can do when a girl is blushing; sometimes, when

there is a big crowd of strangers, it is even likely to make her cry if

she is as young as Joan was. God knows the reason for this, it is hidden

from men. As for me, I would as soon blush as sneeze; in fact, I would

rather. However, these meditations are not of consequence: I will go on

with what I was saying. The King rallied her for blushing, and this

brought up the rest of the blood and turned her face to fire. Then he was

sorry, seeing what he had done, and tried to make her comfortable by

saying the blush was exceeding becoming to her and not to mind it--which

caused even the dog to notice it now, so of course the red in Joan's face

turned to purple, and the tears overflowed and ran down--I could have

told anybody that that would happen. The King was distressed, and saw

that the best thing to do would be to get away from this subject, so he

began to say the finest kind of things about Joan's capture of the

Tourelles, and presently when she was more composed he mentioned the

reward again and pressed her to name it. Everybody listened with anxious

interest to hear what her claim was going to be, but when her answer came

their faces showed that the thing she asked for was not what they had

been expecting.

"Oh, dear and gracious Dauphin, I have but one desire--only one. If--"

"Do not be afraid, my child--name it."

"That you will not delay a day. My army is strong and valiant, and eager

to finish its work--march with me to Rheims and receive your crown." You

could see the indolent King shrink, in his butterfly clothes.

"To Rheims--oh, impossible, my General! We march through the heart of

England's power?"

Could those be French faces there? Not one of them lighted in response to

the girl's brave proposition, but all promptly showed satisfaction in the

King's objection. Leave this silken idleness for the rude contact of war?

None of these butterflies desired that. They passed their jeweled

comfit-boxes one to another and whispered their content in the head

butterfly's practical prudence. Joan pleaded with the King, saying:

"Ah, I pray you do not throw away this perfect opportunity. Everything is

favorable--everything. It is as if the circumstances were specially made

for it. The spirits of our army are exalted with victory, those of the

English forces depressed by defeat. Delay will change this. Seeing us

hesitate to follow up our advantage, our men will wonder, doubt, lose

confidence, and the English will wonder, gather courage, and be bold

again. Now is the time--pritheee let us march!"

The King shook his head, and La Tremouille, being asked for an opinion,

eagerly furnished it:

"Sire, all prudence is against it. Think of the English strongholds along

the Loire; think of those that lie between us and Rheims!"

He was going on, but Joan cut him short, and said, turning to him:

"If we wait, they will all be strengthened, reinforced. Will that

advantage us?"

"Why--no."

"Then what is your suggestion?--what is it that you would propose to do?"

"My judgment is to wait."

"Wait for what?"

The minister was obliged to hesitate, for he knew of no explanation that

would sound well. Moreover, he was not used to being catechized in this

fashion, with the eyes of a crowd of people on him, so he was irritated,

and said:

"Matters of state are not proper matters for public discussion."

Joan said placidly:

"I have to beg your pardon. My trespass came of ignorance. I did not know

that matters connected with your department of the government were

matters of state."

The minister lifted his brows in amused surprise, and said, with a touch

of sarcasm:

"I am the King's chief minister, and yet you had the impression that

matters connected with my department are not matters of state? Pray, how

is that?"

Joan replied, indifferently:

"Because there is no state."

"No state!"

"No, sir, there is no state, and no use for a minister. France is shrunk

to a couple of acres of ground; a sheriff's constable could take care of

it; its affairs are not matters of state. The term is too large."

The King did not blush, but burst into a hearty, careless laugh, and the

court laughed too, but prudently turned its head and did it silently. La

Tremouille was angry, and opened his mouth to speak, but the King put up

his hand, and said:

"There--I take her under the royal protection. She has spoken the truth,

the ungilded truth--how seldom I hear it! With all this tinsel on me and

all this tinsel about me, I am but a sheriff after all--a poor shabby

two-acre sheriff--and you are but a constable," and he laughed his

cordial laugh again. "Joan, my frank, honest General, will you name your

reward? I would ennoble you. You shall quarter the crown and the lilies

of France for blazon, and with them your victorious sword to defend

them--speak the word."

It made an eager buzz of surprise and envy in the assemblage, but Joan

shook her head and said:

"Ah, I cannot, dear and noble Dauphin. To be allowed to work for France,

to spend one's self for France, is itself so supreme a reward that

nothing can add to it--nothing. Give me the one reward I ask, the dearest

of all rewards, the highest in your gift--march with me to Rheims and

receive your crown. I will beg it on my knees."

But the King put his hand on her arm, and there was a really brave

awakening in his voice and a manly fire in his eye when he said:

"No, sit. You have conquered me--it shall be as you--"

But a warning sign from his minister halted him, and he added, to the

relief of the court:

"Well, well, we will think of it, we will think it over and see. Does

that content you, impulsive little soldier?"

The first part of the speech sent a glow of delight to Joan's face, but

the end of it quenched it and she looked sad, and the tears gathered in

her eyes. After a moment she spoke out with what seemed a sort of

terrified impulse, and said:

"Oh, use me; I beseech you, use me--there is but little time!"

"But little time?"

"Only a year--I shall last only a year."

"Why, child, there are fifty good years in that compact little body yet."

"Oh, you err, indeed you do. In one little year the end will come. Ah,

the time is so short, so short; the moments are flying, and so much to be

done. Oh, use me, and quickly--it is life or death for France."

Even those insects were sobered by her impassioned words. The King looked

very grave--grave, and strongly impressed. His eyes lit suddenly with an

eloquent fire, and he rose and drew his sword and raised it aloft; then

he brought it slowly down upon Joan's shoulder and said:

"Ah, thou art so simple, so true, so great, so noble--and by this

accolade I join thee to the nobility of France, thy fitting place! And

for thy sake I do hereby ennoble all thy family and all thy kin; and all

their descendants born in wedlock, not only in the male but also in the

female line. And more!--more! To distinguish thy house and honor it above

all others, we add a privilege never accorded to any before in the

history of these dominions: the females of thy line shall have and hold

the right to ennoble their husbands when these shall be of inferior

degree." [Astonishment and envy flared up in every countenance when the

words were uttered which conferred this extraordinary grace. The King

paused and looked around upon these signs with quite evident

satisfaction.] "Rise, Joan of Arc, now and henceforth surnamed Du Lis, in

grateful acknowledgment of the good blow which you have struck for the

lilies of France; and they, and the royal crown, and your own victorious

sword, fit and fair company for each other, shall be grouped in you

escutcheon and be and remain the symbol of your high nobility forever."

As my Lady Du Lis rose, the gilded children of privilege pressed forward

to welcome her to their sacred ranks and call her by her new name; but

she was troubled, and said these honors were not meet for one of her

lowly birth and station, and by their kind grace she would remain simple

Joan of Arc, nothing more--and so be called.

Nothing more! As if there could be anything more, anything higher,

anything greater. My Lady Du Lis--why, it was tinsel, petty, perishable.

But, JOAN OF ARC! The mere sound of it sets one's pulses leaping.

Chapter 24 Tinsel Trappings of Nobility

IT WAS vexatious to see what a to-do the whole town, and next the whole

country, made over the news. Joan of Arc ennobled by the King! People

went dizzy with wonder and delight over it. You cannot imagine how she

was gaped at, stared at, envied. Why, one would have supposed that some

great and fortunate thing had happened to her. But we did not think any

great things of it. To our minds no mere human hand could add a glory to

Joan of Arc. To us she was the sun soaring in the heavens, and her new

nobility a candle atop of it; to us it was swallowed up and lost in her

own light. And she was as indifferent to it and as unconscious of it as

the other sun would have been.

But it was different with her brothers. They were proud and happy in

their new dignity, which was quite natural. And Joan was glad it had been

conferred, when she saw how pleased they were. It was a clever thought in

the King to outflank her scruples by marching on them under shelter of

her love for her family and her kin.

Jean and Pierre sported their coats-of-arms right away; and their society

was courted by everybody, the nobles and commons alike. The

Standard-Bearer said, with some touch of bitterness, that he could see

that they just felt good to be alive, they were so soaked with the

comfort of their glory; and didn't like to sleep at all, because when

they were asleep they didn't know they were noble, and so sleep was a

clean loss of time. And then he said:

"They can't take precedence of me in military functions and state

ceremonies, but when it comes to civil ones and society affairs I judge

they'll cuddle coolly in behind you and the knights, and Noel and I will

have to walk behind them--hey?"

"Yes," I said, "I think you are right."

"I was just afraid of it--just afraid of it," said the Standard-Bearer,

with a sigh. "Afraid of it? I'm talking like a fool; of course I knew it.

Yes, I was talking like a fool."

Noel Rainguesson said, musingly:

"Yes, I noticed something natural about the tone of it."

We others laughed.

"Oh, you did, did you? You think you are very clever, don't you? I'll

take and wring your neck for you one of these days, Noel Rainguesson."

The Sieur de Metz said:

"Paladin, your fears haven't reached the top notch. They are away below

the grand possibilities. Didn't it occur to you that in civil and society

functions they will take precedence of all the rest of the personal

staff--every one of us?"

"Oh, come!"

"You'll find it's so. Look at their escutcheon. Its chiefest feature is

the lilies of France. It's royal, man, royal--do you understand the size

of that? The lilies are there by authority of the King--do you understand

the size of that? Though not in detail and in entirety, they do

nevertheless substantially quarter the arms of France in their coat.

Imagine it! consider it! measure the magnitude of it! We walk in front of

those boys? Bless you, we've done that for the last time. In my opinion

there isn't a lay lord in this whole region that can walk in front of

them, except the Duke d'Alencon, prince of the blood."

You could have knocked the Paladin down with a feather. He seemed to

actually turn pale. He worked his lips a moment without getting anything

out; then it came:

"I didn't know that, nor the half of it; how could I? I've been an idiot.

I see it now--I've been an idiot. I met them this morning, and sung out

hello to them just as I would to anybody. I didn't mean to be

ill-mannered, but I didn't know the half of this that you've been

telling. I've been an ass. Yes, that is all there is to it--I've been an

ass."

Noel Rainguesson said, in a kind of weary way:

"Yes, that is likely enough; but I don't see why you should seem

surprised at it."

"You don't, don't you? Well, why don't you?"

"Because I don't see any novelty about it. With some people it is a

condition which is present all the time. Now you take a condition which

is present all the time, and the results of that condition will be

uniform; this uniformity of result will in time become monotonous;

monotonousness, by the law of its being, is fatiguing. If you had

manifested fatigue upon noticing that you had been an ass, that would

have been logical, that would have been rational; whereas it seems to me

that to manifest surprise was to be again an ass, because the condition

of intellect that can enable a person to be surprised and stirred by

inert monotonousness is a--"

"Now that is enough, Noel Rainguesson; stop where you are, before you get

yourself into trouble. And don't bother me any more for some days or a

week an it please you, for I cannot abide your clack."

"Come, I like that! I didn't want to talk. I tried to get out of talking.

If you didn't want to hear my clack, what did you keep intruding your

conversation on me for?"

"I? I never dreamed of such a thing."

"Well, you did it, anyway. And I have a right to feel hurt, and I do feel

hurt, to have you treat me so. It seems to me that when a person goads,

and crowds, and in a manner forces another person to talk, it is neither

very fair nor very good-mannered to call what he says clack."

"Oh, snuffle--do! and break your heart, you poor thing. Somebody fetch

this sick doll a sugar-rag. Look you, Sir Jean de Metz, do you feel

absolutely certain about that thing?"

"What thing?"

"Why, that Jean and Pierre are going to take precedence of all the lay

noblesse hereabouts except the Duke d'Alencon?"

"I think there is not a doubt of it."

The Standard-Bearer was deep in thoughts and dreams a few moments, then

the silk-and-velvet expanse of his vast breast rose and fell with a sigh,

and he said:

"Dear, dear, what a lift it is! It just shows what luck can do. Well, I

don't care. I shouldn't care to be a painted accident--I shouldn't value

it. I am prouder to have climbed up to where I am just by sheer natural

merit than I would be to ride the very sun in the zenith and have to

reflect that I was nothing but a poor little accident, and got shot up

there out of somebody else's catapult. To me, merit is everything--in

fact, the only thing. All else is dross."

Just then the bugles blew the assembly, and that cut our talk short.

Chapter 25 At Last--Forward!

THE DAYS began to waste away--and nothing decided, nothing done. The army

was full of zeal, but it was also hungry. It got no pay, the treasury was

getting empty, it was becoming impossible to feed it; under pressure of

privation it began to fall apart and disperse--which pleased the trifling

court exceedingly. Joan's distress was pitiful to see. She was obliged to

stand helpless while her victorious army dissolved away until hardly the

skeleton of it was left.

At last one day she went to the Castle of Loches, where the King was

idling. She found him consulting with three of his councilors, Robert le

Maçon, a former Chancellor of France, Christophe d'Harcourt, and Gerard

Machet. The Bastard of Orleans was present also, and it is through him

that we know what happened. Joan threw herself at the King's feet and

embraced his knees, saying:

"Noble Dauphin, prithee hold no more of these long and numerous councils,

but come, and come quickly, to Rheims and receive your crown."

Christophe d'Harcourt asked:

"Is it your Voices that command you to say that to the King?"

"Yes, and urgently."

"Then will you not tell us in the King's presence in what way the Voices

communicate with you?"