deep in her sad musings and far away. Then Martin Ladvenu said,
softly:
“Joan.”
She looked up then, with a little start and a wan smile, and said:
“Speak. Have you a message for me?”
“Yes, my poor child. Try to bear it. Do you think you can bear it?”
“Yes”–very softly, and her head drooped again.
“I am come to prepare you for death.”
A faint shiver trembled through her wasted body. There was a
pause. In the stillness we could hear our breathings. Then she said,
still in that low voice:
“When will it be?”
The muffled notes of a tolling bell floated to our ears out of the
distance.
“Now. The time is at hand.”
That slight shiver passed again.
“It is so soon–ah, it is so soon!”
There was a long silence. The distant throbbings of the bell pulsed
through it, and we stood motionless and listening. But it was
broken at last:
“What death is it?”
“By fire!”
“oh, I knew it, I knew it!” She sprang wildly to her feet, and wound
her hands in her hair, and began to writhe and sob, oh, so
piteously, and mourn and grieve and lament, and turn to first one
and then another of us, and search our faces beseechingly, as
hoping she might find help and friendliness there, poor thing–she
that had never denied these to any creature, even her wounded
enemy on the battle-field.
“Oh, cruel, cruel, to treat me so! And must my body, that has never
been defiled, be consumed today and turned to ashes? Ah, sooner
would I that my head were cut off seven times than suffer this
woeful death. I had the promise of the Church’s prison when I
submitted, and if I had but been there, and not left here in the
hands of my enemies, this miserable fate had not befallen me.
Oh, I appeal to God the Great Judge, against the injustice which
has been done me.”
There was none there that could endure it. They turned away, with
the tears running down their faces. In a moment I was on my knees
at her feet. At once she thought only of my danger, and bent and
whispered in my hear: “Up!–do not peril yourself, good heart.
There–God bless you always!” and I felt the quick clasp of her
hand. Mine was the last hand she touched with hers in life. None
saw it; history does not know of it or tell of it, yet it is true, just as
I have told it. The next moment she saw Cauchon coming, and she
went and stood before him and reproached him, saying:
“Bishop, it is by you that I die!”
He was not shamed, not touched; but said, smoothly:
“Ah, be patient, Joan. You die because you have not kept your
promise, but have returned to your sins.”
“Alas,” she said, “if you had put me in the Church’s prison, and
given me right and proper keepers, as you promised, this would not
have happened. And for this I summon you to answer before God!”
Then Cauchon winced, and looked less placidly content than
before, and he turned him about and went away.
Joan stood awhile musing. She grew calmer, but occasionally she
wiped her eyes, and now and then sobs shook her body; but their
violence was modifying now, and the intervals between them were
growing longer. Finally she looked up and saw Pierre Maurice,
who had come in with the Bishop, and she said to him:
“Master Peter, where shall I be this night?”
“Have you not good hope in God?”
“Yes–and by His grace I shall be in Paradise.”
Now Martin Ladvenu heard her in confession; then she begged for
the sacrament. But how grant the communion to one who had been
publicly cut off from the Church, and was now no more entitled to
its privileges than an unbaptized pagan? The brother could not do
this, but he sent to Cauchon to inquire what he must do. All laws,
human and divine, were alike to that man–he respected none of
them. He sent back orders to grant Joan whatever she wished. Her
last speech to him had reached his fears, perhaps; it could not