ief.

'Then,' continued the Bishop, 'you deny that to which you swore on
oath only last Thursday?'

'My voices,' said Joan, 'have told me since then that I had committed
a bad deed in saying that I had not done the things which I have
done!'

'Then,' continued the Bishop, with eagerness, 'you retract your
abjuration?'

'It was,' said Joan of Arc, 'from the fear of being burnt that I
retracted what I had done; but I never intended to deny or revoke my
voices.'

'But then,' said Cauchon, 'are you now no longer afraid of being
burnt?'

'I had rather die than endure any longer what I have now to undergo.'

And with these broken-hearted words of the sufferer ended this long
mockery of a trial, so patiently endured during three weariful months
by the martyr Maid.

On quitting the prison, Cauchon met Lord Warwick among some Englishmen
in the outer court of the castle. They were clamouring that the
execution of Joan of Arc should be soon carried out. The Bishop
accosted the Earl with a smile of triumph, and said to him in
English:--

'You can dine now with a good appetite. We have caught her at last!'

CHAPTER VI.

_MARTYRDOM_.

The next day, the 29th of May, Cauchon summoned a large number of
prelates and doctors--forty-two in all--to meet him at the
archiepiscopal chapel, where he recounted to them all the
circumstances of his late interview with the prisoner. He told them
how he had found Joan, in spite of her abjuration, again dressed as a
man, and of her having reaffirmed all that she had so recently abjured
regarding her voices and apparitions. When he had concluded, Cauchon
took the opinion of those around him. Without one dissentient voice,
they all affirmed that she should be handed over to the secular
arm--_i.e._, burnt. The deliberation had not taken long, and, after
thanking the company, the Bishop made out a formal order by which Joan
was summoned at eight o'clock on the next morning to the old
market-place, there to be delivered into the hands of the civil judge,
and by him to be handed over to those of the executioners. 'We
conclude,' said the Bishop, as he dismissed the meeting, 'that Joan
shall be treated as a relapsed heretic, for this appears to us right
and proper in the sight of law and justice.'

Early in the morning of Wednesday, the 30th of May--a date which
should be held sacred in France as that of the martyrdom of her who
through all time must be her country's greatest glor