amn' (an Englishman) 'to eat
his share,' said the Maid, 'and I will return by the bridge;' which was
broken.

The generals did not wish to attack the bridge-tower, but Joan paid them
no attention. They were glad enough to follow, lest she took the fort
without them.

[Illustration: Joan is wounded by the arrow]

About half-past six in the morning the fight began. The French and
Scottish leaped into the fosse, they set ladders against the walls, they
reached the battlements, and were struck down by English swords and
axes. Cannon-balls and great stones and arrows rained on them. 'Fight
on!' cried the Maid; 'the place is ours.' At one o'clock she set a
ladder against the wall with her own hands, but was deeply wounded by an
arrow, which pierced clean through between neck and shoulder. Joan wept,
but seizing the arrow with her own hands she dragged it out. The
men-at-arms wished to say magic spells over the wound to 'charm' it, but
this the Maid forbade as witchcraft. 'Yet,' says Dunois, 'she did not
withdraw from the battle, nor took any medicine for the wound; and the
onslaught lasted from morning till eight at night, so that there was no
hope of victory. Then I desired that the army should go back to the
town, but the Maid came to me and bade me wait a little longer. Next she
mounted her horse and rode into a vineyard, and there prayed for the
space of seven minutes or eight. Then she returned, took her banner, and
stood on the brink of the fosse. The English trembled when they saw her,
but our men returned to the charge and met with no resistance. The
English fled or were slain, and Glasdale, who had insulted the Maid,
was drowned' (by the burning of the drawbridge between the redoubt and
Les Tourelles. The Maid in vain besought him, with tears, to surrender
and be ransomed), 'and we returned gladly into Orleans.' The people of
Orleans had a great share in this victory. Seeing the English hard
pressed, they laid long beams across the broken arches of the bridge,
and charged by this perilous way. The triumph was even more that of the
citizens than of the army. Homer tells us how Achilles, alone and
unarmed, stood by the fosse and shouted, and how all the Trojans fled.
But here was a greater marvel; and the sight of the wounded girl, bowed
beneath the weight of her banner, frighted stouter hearts than those of
the men of Troy.

Joan returned, as she had prophesied, by the bridge, but she did not
make her supper off