t the Burgundy gate on a sudden impulse and made a charge
on one of Lord Talbot's most formidable fortresses--St. Loup--and were
getting the worst of it. The news of this had swept through the city and
started this new crowd that we were with.

As we poured out at the gate we met a force bringing in the wounded from
the front. The sight moved Joan, and she said:

"Ah, French blood; it makes my hair rise to see it!"

We were soon on the field, soon in the midst of the turmoil. Joan was
seeing her first real battle, and so were we.

It was a battle in the open field; for the garrison of St. Loup had
sallied confidently out to meet the attack, being used to victories when
"witches" were not around. The sally had been reinforced by troops from
the "Paris" bastille, and when we approached the French were getting
whipped and were falling back. But when Joan came charging through the
disorder with her banner displayed, crying "Forward, men--follow me!"
there was a change; the French turned about and surged forward like a
solid wave of the sea, and swept the English before them, hacking and
slashing, and being hacked and slashed, in a way that was terrible to
see.

In the field the Dwarf had no assignment; that is to say, he was not
under orders to occupy any particular place, therefore he chose his
place for himself, and went ahead of Joan and made a road for her.
It was horrible to see the iron helmets fly into fragments under his
dreadful ax. He called it cracking nuts, and it looked like that. He
made a good road, and paved it well with flesh and iron. Joan and the
rest of us followed it so briskly that we outspeeded our forces and had
the English behind us as well as before. The knights commanded us to
face outward around Joan, which we did, and then there was work done
that was fine to see. One was obliged to respect the Paladin, now. Being
right under Joan's exalting and transforming eye, he forgot his native
prudence, he forgot his diffidence in the presence of danger, he forgot
what fear was, and he never laid about him in his imaginary battles in a
more tremendous way that he did in this real one; and wherever he struck
there was an enemy the less.

We were in that close place only a few minutes; then our forces to
the rear broke through with a great shout and joined us, and then the
English fought a retreating fight, but in a fine and gallant way, and we
drove them to their fortress foot by foot, they facing us