ng; and if they do not obey I will slay them
all, but if they obey, I will have them to mercy. I am come hither by
God, the King of Heaven, body for body, to put you our of France, in
spite of those who would work treason and mischief against the kingdom.
Think not you shall ever hold the kingdom from the King of Heaven, the
Son of the Blessed Mary; King Charles shall hold it, for God wills it so,
and has revealed it to him by the Maid. If you believe not the news sent
by God through the Maid, wherever we shall met you we will strike boldly
and make such a noise as has not been in France these thousand years. Be
sure that God can send more strength to the Maid than you can bring to
any assault against her and her good men-at-arms; and then we shall see
who has the better right, the King of Heaven, or you. Duke of Bedford,
the Maid prays you not to bring about your own destruction. If you do her
right, you may yet go in her company where the French shall do the finest
deed that has been done in Christendom, and if you do not, you shall be
reminded shortly of your great wrongs.

In that closing sentence she invites them to go on crusade with her to
rescue the Holy Sepulcher. No answer had been returned to this
proclamation, and the messenger himself had not come back.

So now she sent her two heralds with a new letter warning the English to
raise the siege and requiring them to restore that missing messenger. The
heralds came back without him. All they brought was notice from the
English to Joan that they would presently catch her and burn her if she
did not clear out now while she had a chance, and "go back to her proper
trade of minding cows."

She held her peace, only saying it was a pity that the English would
persist in inviting present disaster and eventual destruction when she
was "doing all she could to get them out of the country with their lives
still in their bodies."

Presently she thought of an arrangement that might be acceptable, and
said to the heralds, "Go back and say to Lord Talbot this, from me: 'Come
out of your bastilles with your host, and I will come with mine; if I
beat you, go in peace out of France; if you beat me, burn me, according
to your desire.'"

I did not hear this, but Dunois did, and spoke of it. The challenge was
refused.

Sunday morning her Voices or some instinct gave her a warning, and she
sent Dunois to Blois to take command of the army and hurry it to Orleans.
It was a wise