endless, indeed--it is the right word. For she was in a black
dungeon, with half a dozen brutal common soldiers keeping guard night
and day in the room where her cage was--for she was in a cage; an iron
cage, and chained to her bed by neck and hands and feet. Never a person
near her whom she had ever seen before; never a woman at all. Yes, this
was, indeed, friendlessness.

Now it was a vassal of Jean de Luxembourg who captured Joan and
Compiegne, and it was Jean who sold her to the Duke of Burgundy. Yet
this very De Luxembourg was shameless enough to go and show his face to
Joan in her cage. He came with two English earls, Warwick and Stafford.
He was a poor reptile. He told her he would get her set free if she
would promise not to fight the English any more. She had been in that
cage a long time now, but not long enough to break her spirit. She
retorted scornfully:

"Name of God, you but mock me. I know that you have neither the power
nor the will to do it."

He insisted. Then the pride and dignity of the soldier rose in Joan, and
she lifted her chained hands and let them fall with a clash, saying:

"See these! They know more than you, and can prophesy better. I know that
the English are going to kill me, for they think that when I am dead
they can get the Kingdom of France. It is not so.

"Though there were a hundred thousand of them they would never get it."

This defiance infuriated Stafford, and he--now think of it--he a free,
strong man, she a chained and helpless girl--he drew his dagger and
flung himself at her to stab her. But Warwick seized him and held him
back. Warwick was wise. Take her life in that way? Send her to Heaven
stainless and undisgraced? It would make her the idol of France, and the
whole nation would rise and march to victory and emancipation under the
inspiration of her spirit. No, she must be saved for another fate than
that.

Well, the time was approaching for the Great Trial. For more than two
months Cauchon had been raking and scraping everywhere for any odds and
ends of evidence or suspicion or conjecture that might be usable against
Joan, and carefully suppressing all evidence that came to hand in her
favor. He had limitless ways and means and powers at his disposal for
preparing and strengthening the case for the prosecution, and he used
them all.

But Joan had no one to prepare her case for her, and she was shut up in
those stone walls and had no friend to appeal to for help.