He got no further, for she interrupted him, saying: 

“To what good end?  We start at eleven to-night.”

And it was so.  At ten the governor came, with his guard and arms, with horses and equipment for me and for the brothers, and gave Joan a letter to the King.  Then he took off his sword, and belted it about her waist with his own hands, and said: 

“You said true, child.  The battle was lost, on the day you said.  So I have kept my word.  Now go—­come of it what may.”

Joan gave him thanks, and he went his way.

The lost battle was the famous disaster that is called in history the
Battle of the Herrings.

All the lights in the house were at once put out, and a little while after, when the streets had become dark and still, we crept stealthily through them and out at the western gate and rode away under whip and spur.

Chapter 3 The Paladin Groans and Boasts

We were twenty-five strong, and well equipped.  We rode in double file, Joan and her brothers in the center of the column, with Jean de Metz at the head of it and the Sieur Bertrand at its extreme rear.  In two or three hours we should be in the enemy’s country, and then none would venture to desert.  By and by we began to hear groans and sobs and execrations from different points along the line, and upon inquiry found that six of our men were peasants who had never ridden a horse before, and were finding it very difficult to stay in their saddles, and moreover were now beginning to suffer considerable bodily torture.  They had been seized by the governor at the last moment and pressed into the service to make up the tale, and he had placed a veteran alongside of each with orders to help him stick to the saddle, and kill him if he tried to desert.

These poor devils had kept quiet as long as they could, but their physical miseries were become so sharp by this time that they were obliged to give them vent.  But we were within the enemy’s country now, so there was no help for them, they must continue the march, though Joan said that if they chose to take the risk they might depart.  They preferred to stay with us.  We modified our pace now, and moved cautiously, and the new men were warned to keep their sorrows to themselves and not get the command into danger with their curses and lamentations.

Toward dawn we rode deep into a forest, and soon all but the sentries were sound asleep in spite of the cold ground and the frosty air.

I woke at noon out of such a solid and stupefying sleep that at first my wits were all astray, and I did not know where I was nor what had been happening.  Then my senses cleared, and I remembered.  As I lay there thinking over the strange events of the past month or two the thought came into my mind, greatly surprising me, that one of Joan’s prophecies had failed; for where were Noel and the Paladin, who