, the King's beguilers," said
Bertrand. "She was full of interest, and asked a thousand questions, all
of which I answered according to my ability. Then she sat thinking over
these replies until I thought she was lost in a dream and would wake no
more. But it was not so. At last she said, slowly, and as if she
were talking to herself: 'A child of seventeen--a
girl--country-bred--untaught--ignorant of war, the use of arms, and
the conduct of battles--modest, gentle, shrinking--yet throws away her
shepherd's crook and clothes herself in steel, and fights her way
through a hundred and fifty leagues of fear, and comes--she to whom a
king must be a dread and awful presence--and will stand up before such
an one and say, Be not afraid, God has sent me to save you! Ah, whence
could come a courage and conviction so sublime as this but from very God
Himself!' She was silent again awhile, thinking and making up her mind;
then she said, 'And whether she comes of God or no, there is that in
her heart that raises her above men--high above all men that breathe in
France to-day--for in her is that mysterious something that puts heart
into soldiers, and turns mobs of cowards into armies of fighters that
forget what fear is when they are in that presence--fighters who go into
battle with joy in their eyes and songs on their lips, and sweep over
the field like a storm--that is the spirit that can save France, and that
alone, come it whence it may! It is in her, I do truly believe, for what
else could have borne up that child on that great march, and made her
despise its dangers and fatigues? The King must see her face to face--and
shall!' She dismissed me with those good words, and I know her promise
will be kept. They will delay her all they can--those animals--but she
will not fail in the end."

"Would she were King!" said the other knight, fervently. "For there is
little hope that the King himself can be stirred out of his lethargy. He
is wholly without hope, and is only thinking of throwing away everything
and flying to some foreign land. The commissioners say there is a
spell upon him that makes him hopeless--yes, and that it is shut up in a
mystery which they cannot fathom."

"I know the mystery," said Joan, with quiet confidence; "I know it,
and he knows it, but no other but God. When I see him I will tell him a
secret that will drive away his trouble, then he will hold up his head
again."

I was miserable with curiosity to know