"Have you good spurs, M. de Duc?" she asked, with one flashing
smile showing the gleam of white teeth.

"Ah Ciel!" he cried in dismay; "then shall we fly before them?"

"Not so," she answered; "but they will fly so fast before us that
we shall need good spurs to keep up with them!"

And so, indeed, it was. Perhaps it was the sight of the elan of the
French troops, perhaps the fear of the White Witch, perhaps because
taken at unawares and in confusion, but the English for once made
no stand. Fastolffe and his men, on the outer skirts of the force,
rode off at once in some order, heading straight for Paris, but the
braver and less prudent Talbot sought, again and again, to rally
his men, and bring them to face the foe.

But it was useless. The rout was utter and complete. They could not
stand before the Maid; and when Talbot himself had fallen a
prisoner into our hands, the army melted away and ran for its life,
so that this engagement is called the "Chasse de Patay" to this
day.

CHAPTER XV. HOW THE MAID RODE WITH THE KING.

Thus the English were routed with great loss, their leading
generals prisoners in the hands of the Maid, and the road for the
King open, not to Rheims alone, but to the very walls of Paris, had
he so chosen.

Indeed, there were those amongst us who would gladly and joyfully
have marched under our great white banner right to the capital of
the kingdom, and driven forth from it the English Regent and all
the soldiers with him, whether Burgundians or those of his own
nation. For Fastolffe was flying along the road which led him
thither, and it would have been a joy to many of us to pursue and
overtake, to rout him and his army, or put them to the sword, and
to march up beneath the walls of Paris itself, and demand its
surrender in the name of the Maid!

Those there were amongst us who even came and petitioned of her to
lead us thither, and strike a death blow, once and for all, against
the power of the alien foe who had ruled our fair realm too long;
but though her eyes brightened as we spoke, and though all that was
martial in her nature responded to the appeal thus made to her--for
by this time she was a soldier through every fibre of her being,
and albeit ever extraordinarily tender towards the wounded, the
suffering, the dying--be they friends or foes--the soldier spirit
within her burned ever higher and higher, and she knew in her clear
head that humanly speaking, we could embark u