and moving down against the Tourelles.

First we must take a supporting work called a boulevard, and which was
otherwise nameless, before we could assault the great bastille. Its rear
communicated with the bastille by a drawbridge, under which ran a
swift and deep strip of the Loire. The boulevard was strong, and Dunois
doubted our ability to take it, but Joan had no such doubt. She pounded
it with artillery all the forenoon, then about noon she ordered an
assault and led it herself. We poured into the fosse through the smoke
and a tempest of missiles, and Joan, shouting encouragements to her men,
started to climb a scaling-ladder, when that misfortune happened which
we knew was to happen--the iron bolt from an arbaquest struck between her
neck and her shoulder, and tore its way down through her armor. When she
felt the sharp pain and saw her blood gushing over her breast, she was
frightened, poor girl, and as she sank to the ground she began to cry
bitterly.

The English sent up a glad shout and came surging down in strong force
to take her, and then for a few minutes the might of both adversaries
was concentrated upon that spot. Over her and above her, English and
French fought with desperation--for she stood for France, indeed she was
France to both sides--whichever won her won France, and could keep it
forever. Right there in that small spot, and in ten minutes by the
clock, the fate of France, for all time, was to be decided, and was
decided.

If the English had captured Joan then, Charles VII. would have flown the
country, the Treaty of Troyes would have held good, and France, already
English property, would have become, without further dispute, an English
province, to so remain until Judgment Day. A nationality and a kingdom
were at stake there, and no more time to decide it in than it takes to
hard-boil an egg. It was the most momentous ten minutes that the clock
has ever ticked in France, or ever will. Whenever you read in histories
about hours or days or weeks in which the fate of one or another nation
hung in the balance, do not you fail to remember, nor your French hearts
to beat the quicker for the remembrance, the ten minutes that France,
called otherwise Joan of Arc, lay bleeding in the fosse that day, with
two nations struggling over her for her possession.

And you will not forget the Dwarf. For he stood over her, and did the
work of any six of the others. He swung his ax with both hands; whenever
i