uplifted arms the
cross that she might still see it, the soldiers crowding, lit up
with the red glow of the fire, the horrified, trembling crowd like an
agitated sea around. The wild flames rose and fell in sinister gleams
and flashes, the smoke blew upwards, by times enveloping that white
Maid standing out alone against a sky still blue and sweet with
May--Pandemonium underneath, but Heaven above. Then suddenly there came
a great cry from among the black fumes that began to reach the clouds:
"My voices were of God! They have not deceived me!" She had seen and
recognised it at last. Here it was, the miracle: the great victory
that had been promised--though not with clang of swords and triumph of
rescuing knights, and "St. Denis for France!"--but by the sole hand
of God, a victory and triumph for all time, for her country a crown of
glory and ineffable shame.

Thus died the Maid of France--with "Jesus, Jesus," on her lips--till the
merciful smoke breathing upwards choked that voice in her throat; and
one who was like unto the Son of God, who was with her in the fire,
wiped all memory of the bitter cross, wavering uplifted through the air
in the good monk's trembling hands--from eyes which opened bright upon
the light and peace of that Paradise of which she had so long thought
and dreamed.

CHAPTER XVIII -- AFTER.

The natural burst of remorse which follows such an event is well known
in history; and is as certainly to be expected as the details of the
great catastrophe itself. We feel almost as if, had there not been fact
and evidence for such a revulsion of feeling, it must have been recorded
all the same, being inevitable. The executioner, perhaps the most
innocent of all, sought out Frere Isambard, and confessed to him in an
anguish of remorse fearing never to be pardoned for what he had done.
An Englishman who had sworn to add a faggot to the flames in which the
witch should be burned, when he rushed forward to keep his word was
seized with sudden compunction--believed that he saw a white dove
flutter forth from amid the smoke over her head, and, almost fainting
at the sight, had to be led by his comrades to the nearest tavern for
refreshment, a life-like touch in which we recognise our countryman; but
he too found his way that afternoon to Frere Isambard like the other. A
horrible story is told by the _Bourgeois de Paris_, whose contemporary
journal is one of the authorities for this period, that "the fire wa