way to take advantage of it. With her is no sitting
down and starving out; no dilly-dallying and fooling
around; no lazying, loafing, and going to sleep; no,
it is storm! storm! storm! and still storm! storm!
storm! and forever storm! storm! storm! hunt the enemy
to his hole, then turn her French hurricanes loose
and carry him by storm! And that is my sort!
Jargeau? What of Jargeau, with its battlements
and towers, its devastating artillery, its seven thousand
picked veterans? Joan of Arc is to the fore,
and by the splendor of God its fate is sealed!”
Oh, he carried them. There was not another word
said about persuading Joan to change her tactics.
They sat talking comfortably enough after that.
By and by Joan entered, and they rose and saluted
with their swords, and she asked what their pleasure
might be. La Hire said:
“It is settled, my General. The matter
concerned Jargeau. There were some who thought
we could not take the place.”
Joan laughed her pleasant laugh, her merry, carefree
laugh; the laugh that rippled so buoyantly from her
lips and made old people feel young again to hear
it; and she said to the company:
“Have no fears—indeed, there is no
need nor any occasion for them. We will strike
the English boldly by assault, and you will see.”
Then a faraway look came into her eyes, and I think
that a picture of her home drifted across the vision
of her mind; for she said very gently, and as one
who muses, “But that I know God guides us and
will give us success, I had liefer keep sheep than
endure these perils.”
We had a homelike farewell supper that evening—just
the personal staff and the family. Joan had to
miss it; for the city had given a banquet in her honor,
and she had gone there in state with the Grand Staff,
through a riot of joy-bells and a sparkling Milky
Way of illuminations.
After supper some lively young folk whom we knew came
in, and we presently forgot that we were soldiers,
and only remembered that we were boys and girls and
full of animal spirits and long-pent fun; and so there
was dancing, and games, and romps, and screams of laughter—just
as extravagant and innocent and noisy a good time
as ever I had in my life. Dear, dear, how long
ago it was!—and I was young then. And
outside, all the while, was the measured tramp of
marching battalions, belated odds and ends of the
French power gathering for the morrow’s tragedy
on the grim stage of war. Yes, in those days
we had those contrasts side by side. And as I
passed along to bed there was another one: the
big Dwarf, in brave new armor, sat sentry at Joan’s
door—the stern Spirit of War made flesh,
as it were—and on his ample shoulder was
curled a kitten asleep.
