It was delivered into the hands of a courier, and he galloped away
with it. The Joan dismissed me, and told me to go to the inn and
stay, and in the morning give to her father the parcel which she
had left there. It contained presents for the Domremy relatives and
friends and a peasant dress which she had bought for herself. She
said she would say good-by to her father and uncle in the morning
if it should still be their purpose to go, instead of tarrying awhile to
see the city.
I didn’t say anything, of course, but I could have said that wild
horses couldn’t keep those men in that town half a day. They waste
the glory of being the first to carry the great news to
Domremy–the taxes remitted forever!–and hear the bells clang
and clatter, and the people cheer and shout? Oh, not they. Patay
and Orleans and the Coronation were events which in a vague way
these men understood to be colossal; but they were colossal mists,
films, abstractions; this was a gigantic reality!
When I got there, do you suppose they were abed! Quite the
reverse. They and the rest were as mellow as mellow could be; and
the Paladin was doing his battles in great style, and the old
peasants were endangering the building with their applause. He
was doing Patay now; and was bending his big frame forward and
laying out the positions and movements with a rake here and a
rake there of his formidable sword on the floor, and the peasants
were stooped over with their hands on their spread knees observing
with excited eyes and ripping out ejaculations of wonder and
admiration all along:
“Yes, here we were, waiting–waiting for the word; our horses
fidgeting and snorting and dancing to get away, we lying back on
the bridles till our bodies fairly slanted to the rear; the word rang
out at last–‘Go!’ and we went!
“Went? There was nothing like it ever seen! Where we swept by
squads of scampering English, the mere wind of our passage laid
them flat in piles and rows! Then we plunged into the ruck of
Fastolfe’s frantic battle-corps and tore through it like a hurricane,
leaving a causeway of the dead stretching far behind; no tarrying,
no slacking rein, but on! on! on! far yonder in the distance lay our
prey–Talbot and his host looming vast and dark like a storm-cloud
brooding on the sea! Down we swooped upon them, glooming all
the air with a quivering pall of dead leaves flung up by the
whirlwind of our flight. In another moment we should have struck
them as world strikes world when disorbited constellations crash
into the Milky way, but by misfortune and the inscrutable
dispensation of God I was recognized! Talbot turned white, and
shouting, ‘Save yourselves, it is the Standard-Bearer of Joan of
Arc!’ drove his spurs home till they met in the middle of his horse’s
entrails, and fled the field with his billowing multitudes at his
back! I could have cursed myself for not putting on a disguise. I
saw reproach in the eyes of her Excellency, and was bitterly
ashamed. I had caused what seemed an irreparable disaster.
Another might have gone aside to grieve, as not seeing any way to
mend it; but I thank God I am not of those. Great occasions only
summon as with a trumpet-call the slumbering reserves of my
intellect. I saw my opportunity in an instant–in the next I was
away! Through the woods I vanished–fst!–like an extinguished
light! Away around through the curtaining forest I sped, as if on
wings, none knowing what was become of me, none suspecting my
design. Minute after minute passed, on and on I flew; on, and still
on; and at last with a great cheer I flung my Banner to the breeze
and burst out in front of Talbot! Oh, it was a mighty thought! That
weltering chaos of distracted men whirled and surged backward
like a tidal wave which has struck a continent, and the day was
ours! Poor helpless creatures, they were in a trap; they were
surrounded; they could not escape to the rear, for there was our