would rather die than continue so. But if they may be taken off, and if I may hear mass, and be removed to a penitential prison, and have a woman about me, I will be good, and will do what shall seem good to you that I do."
Cauchon sniffed scoffingly at that. Honor the compact which he and his had made with her?
Fulfil its conditions? What need of that? Conditions had been a good thing to concede, temporarily, and for advantage; but they have served their turn—let something of a fresher sort and of more consequence be considered. The resumption of the male dress was sufficient for all practical purposes, but perhaps Joan could be led to add something to that fatal crime. So Cauchon asked her if her Voices had spoken to her since Thursday—and he reminded her of her abjuration.
"Yes," she answered; and then it came out that the Voices had talked with her about the abjuration—told her about it, I suppose. She guilelessly reasserted the heavenly origin of her mission, and did it with the untroubled mien of one who was not conscious that she had ever knowingly repudiated it. So I was convinced once more that she had had no notion of what she was doing that Thursday morning on the platform. Finally she said, "My Voices told me I did very wrong to confess that what I had done was not well." Then she sighed, and said with simplicity, "But it was the fear of the fire that made me do so."
That is, fear of the fire had made her sign a paper whose contents she had not understood then, but understood now by revelation of her Voices and by testimony of her persecutors.
She was sane now and not exhausted; her courage had come back, and with it her inborn loyalty to the truth. She was bravely and serenely speaking it again, knowing that it would deliver her body up to that very fire which had such terrors for her.
That answer of hers was quite long, quite frank, wholly free from concealments or palliations. It made me shudder; I knew she was pronouncing sentence of death upon herself. So did poor Manchon. And he wrote in the margin abreast of it:
"RESPONSIO MORTIFERA."
Fatal answer. Yes, all present knew that it was, indeed, a fatal answer. Then there fell a silence such as falls in a sick-room when the watchers of the dying draw a deep breath and say softly one to another, "All is over."
Here, likewise, all was over; but after some moments Cauchon, wishing to clinch this matter and make it final, put this question:
"Do you still believe that your Voices are St. Marguerite and St. Catherine?"
"Yes—and that they come from God."
"Yet you denied them on the scaffold?"
Then she made direct and clear affirmation that she had never had any intention to deny them; and that if—I noted the if—"if she had made some retractions and revocations on the scaffold it was from fear of the fire, and it was a violation of the truth."
There it is again, you see. She certainly never knew what it was she had done on the scaffold until she was told of it afterward by these people and by her Voices.
And now she closed this most painful scene with these words; and there was a weary note in them that was pathetic:
"I would rather do my penance all at once; let me die. I cannot endure captivity any longer."
The spirit born for sunshine and liberty so longed for release that it would take it in any form, even that.
Several among the company of judges went from the place troubled and sorrowful, the others in another mood. In the court of the castle we found the Earl of Warwick and fifty English waiting, impatient for news. As soon as Cauchon saw them he shouted—laughing—think of a man destroying a friendless poor girl and then having the heart to laugh at it:
"Make yourselves comfortable—it's all over with her!"
Chapter 23.
The Time Is at Hand
The young can sink into abysses of despondency, and it was so with Noel and me now; but the hopes of the young are quick to rise again, and it was so with ours. We called back that vague promise of the Voices, and said the one to the other that the glorious release was to happen at "the last moment"—"that other time was not the last moment, but this is; it will happen now; the King will come, La Hire will come, and with them our veterans, and behind them all France!" And so we were full of heart again, and could already hear, in fancy, that stirring music the clash of steel and the war-cries and the uproar of the onset, and in fancy see our prisoner free, her chains gone, her sword in her hand.
But this dream was to pass also, and come to nothing. Late at night, when Manchon came in, he said:
"I am come from the dungeon, and I have a message for you from that poor child."
A message to me! If he had been noticing I think he would have discovered me—discovered that my indifference concerning the prisoner was a pretense; for I was caught off my guard, and was so moved and so exalted to be so honored by her that I must have shown my feeling in my face and manner.
"A message for me, your reverence?"
"Yes. It is something she wishes done. She said she had noticed the young man who helps me, and that he had a good face; and did I think he would do a kindness for her? I said I knew you would, and asked her what it was, and she said a letter—would you write a letter to her mother?
"And I said you would. But I said I would do it myself, and gladly; but she said no, that my labors were heavy, and she thought the young man would not mind the doing of this service for one not able to do it for herself, she not knowing how to write. Then I would have sent for you, and at that the sadness vanished out of her face. Why, it was as if she was going to see a friend, poor friendless thing. But I was not permitted. I did my best, but the orders remain as strict as ever, the doors are closed against all but officials; as before, none but officials may speak to her. So I went back and told her, and she sighed, and was sad again. Now this is what she begs you to write to her mother. It is partly a strange message, and to me means nothing, but she said her mother would understand. You will 'convey her adoring love to her family and her village friends, and say there will be no rescue, for that this night—and it is the third time in the twelvemonth, and is final—she has seen the Vision of the Tree.'"
"How strange!"
"Yes, it is strange, but that is what she said; and said her parents would understand. And for a little time she was lost in dreams and thinkings, and her lips moved, and I caught in her muttering these lines, which she said over two or three times, and they seemed to bring peace and contentment to her. I set them down, thinking they might have some connection with her letter and be useful; but it was not so; they were a mere memory, floating idly in a tired mind, and they have no meaning, at least no relevancy."
I took the piece of paper, and found what I knew I should find:
And when in exile wand'ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee, Oh, rise upon our sight!
There was no hope any more. I knew it now. I knew that Joan's letter was a message to Noel and me, as well as to her family, and that its object was to banish vain hopes from our minds and tell us from her own mouth of the blow that was going to fall upon us, so that we, being her soldiers, would know it for a command to
