He got no further, for she interrupted him, saying:
“To what good end? We start at eleven to-night.”
And it was so. At ten the governor came, with
his guard and arms, with horses and equipment for
me and for the brothers, and gave Joan a letter to
the King. Then he took off his sword, and belted
it about her waist with his own hands, and said:
“You said true, child. The battle was lost,
on the day you said. So I have kept my word.
Now go—come of it what may.”
Joan gave him thanks, and he went his way.
The lost battle was the famous disaster that is called
in history the
Battle of the Herrings.
All the lights in the house were at once put out,
and a little while after, when the streets had become
dark and still, we crept stealthily through them and
out at the western gate and rode away under whip and
spur.
We were twenty-five strong, and well equipped.
We rode in double file, Joan and her brothers in the
center of the column, with Jean de Metz at the head
of it and the Sieur Bertrand at its extreme rear.
In two or three hours we should be in the enemy’s
country, and then none would venture to desert.
By and by we began to hear groans and sobs and execrations
from different points along the line, and upon inquiry
found that six of our men were peasants who had never
ridden a horse before, and were finding it very difficult
to stay in their saddles, and moreover were now beginning
to suffer considerable bodily torture. They had
been seized by the governor at the last moment and
pressed into the service to make up the tale, and
he had placed a veteran alongside of each with orders
to help him stick to the saddle, and kill him if he
tried to desert.
These poor devils had kept quiet as long as they could,
but their physical miseries were become so sharp by
this time that they were obliged to give them vent.
But we were within the enemy’s country now, so
there was no help for them, they must continue the
march, though Joan said that if they chose to take
the risk they might depart. They preferred to
stay with us. We modified our pace now, and moved
cautiously, and the new men were warned to keep their
sorrows to themselves and not get the command into
danger with their curses and lamentations.
Toward dawn we rode deep into a forest, and soon all
but the sentries were sound asleep in spite of the
cold ground and the frosty air.
I woke at noon out of such a solid and stupefying
sleep that at first my wits were all astray, and I
did not know where I was nor what had been happening.
Then my senses cleared, and I remembered. As I
lay there thinking over the strange events of the
past month or two the thought came into my mind, greatly
surprising me, that one of Joan’s prophecies
had failed; for where were Noel and the Paladin, who
