35 n,

or grappled with and dashed into the fosse. Valiantly the English fought with bow-shot and gunshot, with axes, lances, bills, and leaden maces, and even with their fists, so that there were many killed and wounded. But like Antaeus, of whom it was fabled that being a son of the goddess, Tellus, or the earth, every fall he received from Hercules gave him more strength, so the French returned to the charge after every repulse with such vigour that it was marvellous to behold.

The air was filled with shouts and cries of the captains: “France and St. Denys!”

“St. George for England!” It whirled to the singing of arrows, the twang of bowstrings, the clang of axes on armour, and the roar of guns.

Exposed to all the dangers of the fray Jeanne stood, her clear girlish voice sounding high above the din and confusion of battle:

“Be of good cheer. The hour is at hand!”

But after many hours of desperate fighting the spirit of the assailants began to flag. Seeing this the Maid seized a scaling ladder, and placing it against the walls started to mount amid a rain of arrows and stones. As she did so she cried clearly:

“On, on! Be of good courage! They are ours.”

With a shout the French swarmed over the fosse with their ladders until there seemed a forest of ladders against the walls. Up Jeanne mounted, still crying out encouragements, and then––all in a moment a bolt whizzed, and uttering a cry

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terror and pain the maiden reeled and fell. A great Hurrah! went up from the English––a mighty shout of triumph and rejoicing. The witch had fallen, and with her went the mysterious force that had overwhelmed them. She was slain,

or if not killed her blood was shed, which forever spoiled her witchcraft; for such was the superstition. Therefore they rejoiced, and renewed the defence with confidence.

It was De Gamache, the captain who had said that he would not follow a girl of

the fields whom nobody knew, who raised her, and carried her back.

“Take my horse, brave creature,” he said. “Bear no malice. I confess that I was in

the wrong.”

“It is I that should be wrong if I bore malice,” cried Jeanne, “for never was knight so courteous.”

Her own people had followed her when she was carried out of the fray. The bolt

stood out a hand-breadth behind her shoulder, and the maiden wept with the pain. She was General-in-Chief of the army, but she was seventeen, and after all but a girl, so she cried just as any girl would have done. Some one of the soldiers proposed to charm the wound with a song of healing, but the maiden cried:

“I would rather die than do so, for it would be sin.”

And then, because none of her attendants would drag the bolt from her shoulder

for fear of hurting her, she herself pulled it out, and as the blood gushed out she swooned. Father Pasquerel, who was surgeon as well as priest, dressed the wound with a compress soaked in oil, and Jeanne, recovering from her faint, made her confession to him, then lay quiet.

Meantime the battle languished. Discouraged assailants were drawing back from

the boulevard out of bow-shot, and Dunois himself thought that there was no hope of victory, the day being nearly spent, and the men weary. So he had the recall sounded, and gave orders to retreat across the river. Brave work had been done, and the captains had not hoped to take the place in a month. The bugle notes of the retreat were welcome music to the English, and to the wearied French who had fought without cessation for thirteen hours. But when they sounded on the ears of the wounded Maid she heard them with amazement.

She rose in haste, and somehow managed to mount her horse, and so rode to Dunois.

“Doubt not,” she said. “They are ours. Rest a little. Eat something. Refresh yourselves, and wait for me a little.”

With that she withdrew into a little vineyard close by, and prayed for the half of a quarter of an hour. When she appeared again her eyes were shining, her whole

appearance that of one inspired.

“On,” she cried, “the place is ours.” And she spurred toward the fosse.

Now her standard had not been removed from the edge of the moat, for D’Aulon

had kept it there to be a terror to the English and an inspiration to the French.

When the trumpets had sounded the retreat he, being weary and outworn, had handed it to a Basque to be carried in the retirement. But after the order for the

recall had been countermanded by Dunois at the request of the Maid, D’Aulon, moved to do a feat of arms, said to the Basque:

“If I dismount and go forward to the foot of the wall, will you follow me?”

“I will,” said the Basque.

So D’Aulon leaped into the fosse, his shield up, defying the English, but the Basque did not follow; for Jeanne, seeing her standard in the hands of a man whom she did not know, thought that it was lost, and seized hold of the floating end.

“Ha! my standard! My standard!” she cried, and as she and the Basque struggled

for it, the banner waved wildly like a signal for an immediate onset. The men-at-arms conceived it to be such and gathered for the attack.

“Ha, Basque! Is this what you promised me?” cried D’Aulon, and the Basque tore the banner from the Maid, ran through the ditch and stood beside the emblem. By this time Jeanne’s company stood about her.

“Watch,” said she to the knight at her side. “Watch till the tail of the standard touches the wall.”

A few moments passed. The great standard fluttered with the movements of the

Maytime breeze. Presently the knight cried:

“Jeanne, it touches!”

“Then enter,” cried Jeanne her voice thrilling through the air. “In God’s name, enter! All is yours.”

The troops rose as one man, and flung themselves against the walls. Up they swarmed, “as thick as a cloud of birds lighting on a bush,” says the old chronicle. [10] “Never was assault so fierce and wonderful seen within the memory of living man.” The English, amazed at the new onset, defended themselves valiantly, but the French were irresistible. The defenders became panic-stricken as the French swarmed over the top of the earthwork. Panic-stricken, not by the enemy but by that white figure standing there beneath her standard, the rays of the setting sun striking a dazzling radiance from her shining armour. The witch was there. They had thought her dead, yet there she stood without sign of injury.

“A crowd of butterflies hangs about her,” a soldier cried in terror, throwing down his weapon and turning to flee into the Tourelles.

“No; it is a dove,” gasped another who followed him.

Arrows flew on every side of the maiden, but never touched her, and on the French sped, incited to superhuman effort by the bell-like voice:

“On, on! All is yours!”

And the boulevard was taken.