Alas! for the days of glory which had gone before!  Why did we keep her with the King’s armies, when the monarch’s ear was engrossed by adverse counsel, and his heart turned away from her who had been his Deliverer in the hour of his greatest need?

Methinks she would even now have returned home, but for the devotion of the soldiers and the persuasions of the Duc d’Alencon, and of some of the other generals, amongst whom the foremost were Dunois and La Hire.  These chafed equally with the Maid at the supine attitude of the King; and the Duke, his kinsman, spoke out boldly and fearlessly, warning him of the peril he was doing to his kingdom, and the wrong to the Maid who had served him so faithfully and well, and to whom he had made such fair promises.

But for the present all such entreaties or warnings fell upon deaf ears.  The time for the King’s awakening had not yet come.

Nevertheless, we had our days of glory still, under the banner of the Maid, when, after many months of idleness, the springtide again awoke the world, and she sallied forth strong in the assurance of victory, whilst fortress after fortress fell before her, as in the days of yore.  Oh, how joyous were our hearts!  Now did we believe truly that the tide had turned, and that we were marching on to victory.

But upon the Maid’s face a shadow might often be seen to rest; and once or twice when I would ask her of it, she replied in a low, sorrowful voice: 

“My year is well-nigh ended.  Something looms before me.  My voices have told me to be ready for what is coming.  I fear me it will be my fate to fall into the hands of the foe!”

I would not believe it!  Almost I was resolved to plunge mine own dagger into her heart sooner than she should fall into the hand of the pitiless English.  But woe is me!  I was not at her side that dreadful evening at Compiegne, when this terrible mishap befell.  I had been stricken down in that horrid death trap, when, hemmed in between the ranks of the Burgundians and English, we found our retreat into the city cut off.

Was it treachery?  Was it incapacity upon the part of the leaders of the garrison, or what was the reason that no rush from the city behind took the English in the rear, and effected the rescue of the Maid?

I know not—­I have never known—­all to me is black mystery.  I was one of those to see the peril first, and with Bertrand and Guy de Laval beside me, to charge furiously upon the advancing foe, crying aloud to others to close round the Maid and bear her away into safety, whilst we engaged the enemy and gave them time.

That is all I know.  All the rest vanishes in the mists.  When these mists cleared away, Bertrand and I were in the home of Sir Guy, tended by his mother and grandmother—­both of whom had seen and loved well the wonderful Maid—­and she was in a terrible prison, some said an iron cage, guarded by brutal English soldiers, and declared a witch or a sorceress, not fit to live, nor to die a soldier’s death, but only to perish at the stake as an outcast from God and man.