Yes, that is where we got him—­stretched on the wain, going to his death, poor chap, and nobody to say a good word for him.  He was a good find.  Why, the knights treated him almost like an equal—­it is the honest truth; that is the sort of a man he was.  They called him the Bastille sometimes, and sometimes they called him Hellfire, which was on account of his warm and sumptuous style in battle, and you know they wouldn’t have given him pet names if they hadn’t had a good deal of affection for him.

To the Dwarf, Joan was France, the spirit of France made flesh—­he never got away from that idea that he had started with; and God knows it was the true one.  That was a humble eye to see so great a truth where some others failed.  To me that seems quite remarkable.  And yet, after all, it was, in a way, just what nations do.  When they love a great and noble thing, they embody it—­they want it so that they can see it with their eyes; like liberty, for instance.  They are not content with the cloudy abstract idea, they make a beautiful statue of it, and then their beloved idea is substantial and they can look at it and worship it.  And so it is as I say; to the Dwarf, Joan was our country embodied, our country made visible flesh cast in a gracious form.  When she stood before others, they saw Joan of Arc, but he saw France.

Sometimes he would speak of her by that name.  It shows you how the idea was embedded in his mind, and how real it was to him.  The world has called our kings by it, but I know of none of them who has had so good a right as she to that sublime title.

When the march past was finished, Joan returned to the front and rode at the head of the column.  When we began to file past those grim bastilles and could glimpse the men within, standing to their guns and ready to empty death into our ranks, such a faintness came over me and such a sickness that all things seemed to turn dim and swim before my eyes; and the other boys looked droopy, too, I thought—­including the Paladin, although I do not know this for certain, because he was ahead of me and I had to keep my eyes out toward the bastille side, because I could wince better when I saw what to wince at.

But Joan was at home—­in Paradise, I might say.  She sat up straight, and I could see that she was feeling different from me.  The awfulest thing was the silence; there wasn’t a sound but the screaking of the saddles, the measured tramplings, and the sneezing of the horses, afflicted by the smothering dust-clouds which they kicked up.  I wanted to sneeze myself, but it seemed to me that I would rather go unsneezed, or suffer even a bitterer torture, if there is one, than attract attention to myself.