e
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 into the darkness beyond
them the better I felt. I came nearer and nearer to feeling good, for an
hour; then we found the bridge still standing, and I felt entirely good.
We crossed it and destroyed it, and then I felt--but I cannot describe
what I felt. One has to feel it himself in order to know what it is like.

We had expected to hear the rush of a pursuing force behind us, for we
thought that the real Captain Raymond would arrive and suggest that
perhaps the troop that had been mistaken for his belonged to the Virgin
of Vaucouleurs; but he must have been delayed seriously, for when we
resumed our march beyond the river there were no sounds behind us except
those which the storm was furnishing.

I said that Joan had harvested a good many compliments intended for
Captain Raymond, and that he would find nothing of a crop left but a dry
stubble of reprimands when he got back, and a commander just in the humor
to superintend the gathering of it in.

Joan said:

"It will be as you say, no doubt; for the commander took a troop for
granted, in the night and unchallenged, and would have camped without
sending a force to destroy the bridge if he had been left unadvised, and
none are so ready to find fault with others as those who do things worthy
of blame themselves."

The Sieur Bertrand was amused at Joan's naive way of referring to her
advice as if it had been a valuable present to a hostile leader who was
saved by it from making a censurable blunder of omission,