He understood Joan to be charging the Bishop with poisoning her,
you see; and that was not pleasing to him, for he was one of Cauchon's
most loving and conscienceless slaves, and it outraged him to have Joan
injure his master in the eyes of these great English chiefs, these being
men who could ruin Cauchon and would promptly do it if they got
the conviction that he was capable of saving Joan from the stake by
poisoning her and thus cheating the English out of all the real value
gainable by her purchase from the Duke of Burgundy.

Joan had a high fever, and the doctors proposed to bleed her. Warwick
said:

"Be careful about that; she is smart and is capable of killing herself."

He meant that to escape the stake she might undo the bandage and let
herself bleed to death.

But the doctors bled her anyway, and then she was better.

Not for long, though. Jean d'Estivet could not hold still, he was so
worried and angry about the suspicion of poisoning which Joan had hinted
at; so he came back in the evening and stormed at her till he brought
the fever all back again.

When Warwick heard of this he was in a fine temper, you may be sure,
for here was his prey threatening to escape again, and all through
the over-zeal of this meddling fool. Warwick gave D'Estivet a quite
admirable cursing--admirable as to strength, I mean, for it was said by
persons of culture that the art of it was not good--and after that the
meddler kept still.

Joan remained ill more than two weeks; then she grew better. She was
still very weak, but she could bear a little persecution now without
much danger to her life. It seemed to Cauchon a good time to furnish it.
So he called together some of his doctors of theology and went to her
dungeon. Manchon and I went along to keep the record--that is, to set
down what might be useful to Cauchon, and leave out the rest.

The sight of Joan gave me a shock. Why, she was but a shadow! It was
difficult for me to realize that this frail little creature with the
sad face and drooping form was the same Joan of Arc that I had so often
seen, all fire and enthusiasm, charging through a hail of death and
the lightning and thunder of the guns at the head of her battalions. It
wrung my heart to see her looking like this.

But Cauchon was not touched. He made another of those conscienceless
speeches of his, all dripping with hypocrisy and guile. He told Joan
that among her answers had been some which had seemed to