reeting to her was rough and blunt.

"Maiden," he said, "they tell me that you are against me, and that
you are a witch. I know not whether you are from God or not. If you
are from Him, I do not fear you. If you are from the devil, I fear
you still less."

She looked him full in the face, gravely at first, but with a smile
kindling deep down in her eyes. Then she held out her hand in token
of amity.

"Brave Constable, this is well spoken. You have no cause to fear
me. You are not here by my will, it is true; for I have enough men
with me to do the will of my Lord; but since you have come for love
of the Dauphin, who soon must be crowned King, you are welcome
indeed; and I know that you will live to serve him faithfully,
though in the present you have foes at Court who turn his heart
from you."

So again she saw what lay beyond our ken, and which the future has
brought to light. Alas, that she never saw the day when the King
threw off his supine fear and idleness, and played the man in the
conquest of his kingdom, and when De Richemont fought like a lion
at his side! Yet who dare say that she did not see and did not
rejoice even then? If the light came only in gleams and flashes,
surely it came to her charged with an infinite joy!

And now I must tell of the last exploit of this wonderful eight
days' triumphal march through a hostile country--that battle of
Patay, where, for the first time, the Maid met the foe in the open,
and directed operations not against stone walls, as in every case
before, but against an army drawn up in a plain.

There had been marching and counter-marching which only a map could
make clear. What matters it the route we pursued, so long only as
our progress had been attended by victory, and the fortresses
cleared of foes, so that the journey of the King could now be taken
in safety? Yet there was one more peril to face; for the army so
long expected, under Sir John Fastolffe, was now heard of somewhere
close at hand. He had joined himself to Talbot, so it was rumoured,
and now a great host was somewhere in our neighbourhood, ready to
fall upon us if they could find us, and cut us to pieces, as they
had done so often before--witness the fields of Crecy, Poictiers,
and Agincourt!

For the first time there was uneasiness and fear in the ranks of
the soldiers. They had infinite confidence in the Maid as a leader
against stone walls, for had they not seen her take tower after
tower, city af