But curious as it may seem, not a shot was fired as we passed along.  A silence strange and sinister seemed to hang over the lines of the enemy; but when we reached the city how all was changed!

It was about eight o’clock in the evening when at last we finished our journey by water and land, and entered the devoted town.  There the chiefest citizens came hurrying to meet us, leading a white charger for their Deliverer to ride upon.

And when she was mounted, the people thronged about her weeping and shouting, blessing and hailing her as their champion and saviour.  The streets were thronged with pale-faced men; women and children hung from the windows, showering flowers at our feet.  Torches lit up the darkening scene, and shone from the breastplates and headpieces of the mailed men.  But the Maid in her white armour seemed like a being from another sphere; and the cry of “St. Michael!  St. Michael himself!” resounded on all sides, and one did not wonder.

Nothing would serve the Maid but to go straight to the Cathedral first, and offer thanksgiving for her arrival here, and the people flocked with her, till the great building was filled to overflowing with her retinue of soldiers and her self-constituted followers.  Some begged of her to address them from the steps at the conclusion of the brief service, but she shook her head.

“I have no words for them—­only I love them all,” she answered, with a little natural quiver of emotion in her voice.  “Tell them so, and that I have come to save them.  And then let me go home.”

So La Hire stood forth and gave the Maid’s message in his trumpet tones, and the Maid was escorted by the whole of the joyful and loving crowd to the house of the Treasurer Boucher, where were her quarters, and where she was received with acclamation and joy.  And thus the Maid entered the beleaguered city of Orleans.

CHAPTER IX.  HOW THE MAID ASSUMED COMMAND AT ORLEANS.

The house of the Treasurer was a beautiful building in the Gothic style, and weary as was the Maid with the toils and excitements through which she had passed, I saw her eyes kindle with pleasure and admiration as she was ceremoniously led into the great banqueting hall, where the tables were spread with abundant good cheer (despite the reduced condition of the city), to do honour to her who came as its Deliverer.

There was something solemn and church-like in these surroundings which appealed at once to the Maid.  She had a keen eye for beauty, whether of nature or in the handiwork of man, and her quick penetrating glances missed nothing of the stately grandeur of the house, the ceremonious and courtly welcome of the Treasurer, its master, or the earnest, wistful gaze of his little daughter Charlotte, who stood holding fast to her mother’s hand in the background, but feasting her great dark eyes upon the wonderful shining figure of the Maid, from whose white armour the lights of the great hall flashed back in a hundred points of fire.