“If! I will take care of that; give yourself no uneasiness. All I want
is just a look at her, to see what the imp is like that has been able
to make all this noise, then you and the halter may have her. How
many men has she?”
“I counted but eighteen, but she may have had two or three pickets
out.”
“Is that all? It won’t be a mouthful for my force. Is it true that she
is only a girl?”
“Yes; she is not more than seventeen.”
“It passes belief! Is she robust, or slender?”
“Slender.”
The officer pondered a moment or two, then he said:
“Was she preparing to break camp?”
“Not when I had my last glimpse of her.”
“What was she doing?”
“She was talking quietly with an officer.”
“Quietly? Not giving orders?”
“No, talking as quietly as we are now.”
“That is good. She is feeling a false security. She would have been
restless and fussy else–it is the way of her sex when danger is
about. As she was making no preparation to break camp–”
“She certainly was not when I saw her last.”
“–and was chatting quietly and at her ease, it means that this
weather is not to her taste. Night-marching in sleet and wind is not
for chits of seventeen. No; she will stay where she is. She has my
thanks. We will camp, ourselves; here is as good a place as any.
Let us get about it.”
“If you command it–certainly. But she has two knights with her.
They might force her to march, particularly if the weather should
improve.”
I was scared, and impatient to be getting out of this peril, and it
distressed and worried me to have Joan apparently set herself to
work to make delay and increase the danger–still, I thought she
probably knew better than I what to do. The officer said:
“Well, in that case we are here to block the way.”
“Yes, if they come this way. But if they should send out spies, and
find out enough to make them want to try for the bridge through
the woods? Is it best to allow the bridge to stand?”
It made me shiver to hear her.
The officer considered awhile, then said:
“It might be well enough to send a force to destroy the bridge. I
was intending to occupy it with the whole command, but that is
not necessary now.”
Joan said, tranquilly:
“With your permission, I will go and destroy it myself.”
Ah, now I saw her idea, and was glad she had had the cleverness to
invent it and the ability to keep her head cool and think of it in that
tight place. The officer replied:
“You have it, Captain, and my thanks. With you to do it, it will be
well done; I could send another in your place, but not a better.”
They saluted, and we moved forward. I breathed freer. A dozen
times I had imagined I heard the hoofbeats of the real Captain
Raymond’s troop arriving behind us, and had been sitting on pins
and needles all the while that that conversation was dragging
along. I breathed freer, but was still not comfortable, for Joan had
given only the simple command, “Forward!” Consequently we
moved in a walk. Moved in a dead walk past a dim and
lengthening column of enemies at our side. The suspense was
exhausting, yet it lasted but a short while, for when the enemy’s
bugles sang the “Dismount!” Joan gave the word to trot, and that
was a great relief to me. She was always at herself, you see. Before
the command to dismount had been given, somebody might have
wanted the countersign somewhere along that line if we came
flying by at speed, but now wee seemed to be on our way to our
allotted camping position, so we were allowed to pass
unchallenged. The further we went the more formidable was the
strength revealed by the hostile force. Perhaps it was only a
hundred or two, but to me it seemed a thousand. When we passed
the last of these people I was thankful, and the deeper we plowed