Yet it was to no speedy victory she urged them.  No angel with a flaming sword came forth to fight and overcome as by a miracle.  But it was enough for that white-clad figure to stand revealed in the thickest of the carnage to animate the men to heroic effort.  As I say, it was the story of St. Loup over again; but if anything the fighting was more severe.  What the Generals had meant for a mere feint, the Maid turned into a desperate battle.  The English were reinforced many times; it seemed as though we had a hopeless task before us.  But confidence and assurance of victory were in our hearts as we saw our Deliverer stand in the thick of the fight and heard her clarion voice ringing over the field.  Ere the shades of night fell, not only was Les Augustins ours, but its stores of food and ammunition had been safely transported into the city, and the place so destroyed and dismantled that never again could it be a source of peril to the town.

And now the Maid’s eyes were fixed full upon the frowning bulk of Les Tourelles, rising grim and black against the darkening sky, with its little “tower of the Boulevard,” on this side the drawbridge.  Thither had the whole English force retired—­all who were not lying dead or desperately wounded on the plain or round the gutted tower of Les Augustins—­we saw their threatening faces looking down fiercely upon us, and heard the angry voices from the walls, heaping abuse and curses upon the “White Witch,” who had wrought them this evil.

“Would that we could attack at once!” spoke the Maid.  “Would that the sun would stay his course!  Truly I do believe that we should carry all before us!”

The leaders came up to praise and glorify her prowess.  They heard her words, but answered how that the men must needs have a night’s rest ere they tried this second great feat of arms.  But, they added, there should be no going back into the city, no delay on the morrow in crossing the river.

It was a warm summer-like night.  Provisions were abundant, shelter could be obtained beneath the walls of the captured citadel.  They, with the bulk of the army, would remain on the south bank for the nonce, and the Maid should return to the city with the convoys of wounded, to spend a quiet night there, returning with the dawn of the morrow to renew the attack and take Les Tourelles.

Thus they spoke, and spoke suavely and courteously.  But I did note a strange look in the eyes of the Maid; and I wondered why it was that Dunois, the speaker, grew red and stumbled over his words, whilst that La Hire, who had done a giant’s work in the fighting that day, ground his teeth and looked both ashamed and disturbed.

The Maid stood a brief while as though in doubt.  But then she made quiet reply: 

“Then, gentlemen, it shall be as you will.  I will return to the city for the night.  But with the dawn of day I will be here, and Les Tourelles shall be ours.  The siege of Orleans shall be raised!”