The bell ceased as we stood thus motionless, and as the last note vibrated through the still air, a change came over the Maid.  Her head drooped, she hid her face in her hands, and thus she knelt as one absorbed in an intensity of prayer.  Even as this happened, the peculiar glory of the sunlight seemed to change.  It shone still, but without such wonderful glow, and our horses at the same time ceased their trembling and their rigid stillness of pose.  They shook their heads and jingled their bits, as though striving to throw off some terrifying impression.

“Let us withdraw from her sight,” whispered Bertrand touching my arm, and very willingly I acceded to this suggestion, and we silently pressed into the shadow of some great oaks, which stood hard by, the trunks of which hid us well from view.  It seemed almost like a species of sacrilege to stand there watching the Maid at her prayers, and yet I vow, that until the bell ceased we had no more power to move than our horses.  Why we were holden by this strange spell I know not.  I can only speak the truth.  We saw nothing and we heard nothing of any miraculous kind, and yet we were like men in a dream, bound hand and foot by invisible bonds, a witness of something unseen to ourselves, which we saw was visible to another.

Beneath the deep shadow of the oaks we looked back.  The Maid had risen to her feet by this, and was stooping to pick up her fallen work.  That done, she stood awhile in deep thought, her face turned towards the little church, whence the bell had only just ceased to sound.

I saw her clearly then—­a maiden slim and tall, so slender that the rather clumsy peasant dress she wore could not give breadth or awkwardness to her lithe figure.  The coif had slipped a little out of place, and some tresses of waving hair had escaped from beneath it, tresses that looked dark till the sun touched them, and then glowed like burnished gold.  Her face was pale, with features in no way marked, but so sweet and serene was the expression of the face, so wonderful was the depth of the great dark eyes, that one was lost in admiration of her beauty, albeit unable to define wherein that beauty lay.

When we started forth, I had meant to try and seek speech with this Jeanne—­this Maid of Domremy—­and to ask her of her mission, and whether she were still believing that she would have power to carry it out; but this purpose now died within me.

How could I dare question such a being as to her visions?  Had I not seen how she was visited by sound or sight not sensible to those around her?  Had I not in some sort been witness to a miracle?  Was it for us to approach and ask of her what had been thus revealed?  No!—­a thousand times no!  If the good God had given her a message, she would know when and where to deliver it.  She had spoken before of her voices.  Let them instruct her.  Let not men seek to interfere.  And so we remained where we were, hidden in the deep shadows, whilst Jeanne, with bent head and lingering, graceful steps, utterly unconscious of the eyes that watched her, went slowly out of sight along the glade leading towards the village and her home.