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 move, for he found Regnault de Chartres and some
more of the King's pet rascals there trying their best to disperse the
army, and crippling all the efforts of Joan's generals to head it for
Orleans. They were a fine lot, those miscreants. They turned their
attention to Dunois now, but he had balked Joan once, with unpleasant
results to himself, and was not minded to meddle in that way again. He
soon had the army moving.

Chapter 15 My Exquisite Poem Goes to Smash

WE OF the personal staff were in fairyland now, during the few days that
we waited for the return of the army. We went into society. To our two
knights this was not a novelty, but to us young villagers it was a new
and wonderful life. Any position of any sort near the person of the Maid
of Vaucouleurs conferred high distinction upon the holder and caused
his society to be courted; and so the D'Arc brothers, and Noel, and the
Paladin, humble peasants at home, were gentlemen here, personages
of weight and influence. It was fine to see how soon their country
diffidences and awkwardnesses melted away under this pleasant sun of
deference and disappeared, and how lightly and easily they took to their
new atmosphere. The Paladin was as happy as it was possible fo