horse,"
he said, "brave creature. Bear no malice. I confess that I was in the
wrong." "It is I that should be wrong if I bore malice," cried Jeanne,
"for never was a knight so courteous" (_chevalier si bien apprins_).
She was surrounded immediately by her people, the chaplain whom she had
bidden to keep near her, her page, all her special attendants, who would
have conveyed her out of the fight had she consented. Jeanne had the
courage to pull the arrow out of the wound with her own hand,--"it stood
a hand breadth out" behind her shoulder--but then, being but a girl and
this her first experience of the sort, notwithstanding her armour and
her rank as General-in-Chief, she cried with the pain, this commander
of seventeen. Somebody then proposed to charm the wound with an
incantation, but the Maid indignant, cried out, "I would rather die."
Finally a compress soaked in oil was placed upon it, and Jeanne withdrew
a little with her chaplain, and made her confession to him, as one who
might be about to die.

But soon her mood changed. She saw the assailants waver and fall back;
the attack grew languid, and Dunois talked of sounding the retreat. Upon
this she got to her feet, and scrambled somehow on her horse. "Rest a
little," she implored the generals about her, "eat something, refresh
yourselves: and when you see my standard floating against the wall,
forward, the place is yours." They seem to have done as she suggested,
making a pause, while Jeanne withdrew a little into a vineyard close
by, where there must have been a tuft of trees, to afford her a little
shelter. There she said her prayers, and tasted that meat to eat that
men wot not of, which restores the devout soul. Turning back she took
her standard from her squire's hand, and planted it again on the edge of
the moat. "Let me know," she said, "when the pennon touches the wall."
The folds of white and gold with the benign countenance of the Saviour,
now visible, now lost in the changes of movement, floated over their
heads on the breeze of the May day. "Jeanne," said the squire, "it
touches!" "On!" cried the Maid, her voice ringing through the momentary
quiet. "On! All is yours!" The troops rose as one man; they flung
themselves against the wall, at the foot of which that white figure
stood, the staff of her banner in her hand, shouting, "All is yours."
Never had the French _elan_ been so wildly inspired, so irresistible;
they swarmed up the wall "as if it had been