to know what to say, and so didn't
say anything. It was because she had given the man the porridge long ago
and he had already eaten it all up. When she was asked why she had not
waited until a decision was arrived at, she said the man's stomach was
very hungry, and it would not have been wise to wait, since she could
not tell what the decision would be. Now that was a good and thoughtful
idea for a child.

The man was not a rascal at all. He was a very good fellow, only he was
out of luck, and surely that was no crime at that time in France. Now
that his stomach was proved to be innocent, it was allowed to make
itself at home; and as soon as it was well filled and needed nothing
more, the man unwound his tongue and turned it loose, and it was really
a noble one to go. He had been in the wars for years, and the things he
told and the way he told them fired everybody's patriotism away up high,
and set all hearts to thumping and all pulses to leaping; then, before
anybody rightly knew how the change was made, he was leading us a
sublime march through the ancient glories of France, and in fancy we saw
the titanic forms of the twelve paladins rise out of the mists of the
past and face their fate; we heard the tread of the innumerable hosts
sweeping down to shut them in; we saw this human tide flow and ebb, ebb
and flow, and waste away before that little band of heroes; we saw each
detail pass before us of that most stupendous, most disastrous, yet most
adored and glorious day in French legendary history; here and there and
yonder, across that vast field of the dead and dying, we saw this and
that and the other paladin dealing his prodigious blows with weary arm
and failing strength, and one by one we saw them fall, till only one
remained--he that was without peer, he whose name gives name to the Song
of Songs, the song which no Frenchman can hear and keep his feelings
down and his pride of country cool; then, grandest and pitifulest scene
of all, we saw his own pathetic death; and our stillness, as we sat with
parted lips and breathless, hanging upon this man's words, gave us a
sense of the awful stillness that reigned in that field of slaughter
when that last surviving soul had passed.

And now, in this solemn hush, the stranger gave Joan a pat or two on the
head and said:

"Little maid--whom God keep!--you have brought me from death to life this
night; now listen: here is your reward," and at that supreme time for
suc