ots to the charge. They answered with a cry, and
went on, De Coutes and I pressing forward to be with them; but ere ever
we could gain the fosse, the English had been overwhelmed, and, for the
more part, slain. For, as we found, the French captains had commanded an
attack on St. Loup, and had told the Maid no word of it, whether as
desiring to win honour without her, or to spare her from the peril of the
onslaught, I know not. But their men were giving ground, when by the
monition of the saints, as I have shown, she came to them and turned the
fray.

Of the English, as I said, most were slain, natheless certain men in
priests' raiment came forth from the Church of St. Loup, and very humbly
begged their lives of the Maid, who, turning to D'Aulon, her esquire,
bade him, with De Coutes and me, and such men as we could gather, to have
charge of them and be answerable for them.

So, while the French were plundering, we mustered these priests orderly
together, they trembling and telling their beads, and we stood before
them for their guard. False priests, I doubt, many of them were,
Englishmen who had hastily done on such holy robes as they found in the
church of St Loup. Now Louis de Coutes, being but a boy, and of a mad
humour, cried--

"'Cucullus non facit monachum!' Good sirs, let us see your reverend
tonsures."

With that he twitched the hood from the head of a tall cordelier, who,
without more ado, felled him to the earth with his fist.

The hood was off but for a flash of time, yet I saw well the shining
wolf's eyes and the long dark face of Brother Thomas. So, in the
pictures of the romance of Renard Fox, have I seen Isengrim the wolf in
the friar's hood.

"Felon and traitor!" I cried, and drawing my sword, was about to run him
through the body, when my hand was stunned by a stroke, and the sword
dropped from it. I turned, in great anger, and saw the Maid, her sword
in her hand, wherewith she had smitten me flatlings, and not with the
edge.

"Knave of a Scot," she cried, "wouldst thou strike a holy man and my
prisoner? Verily they say well that the Scots are all savages. Begone
home, till I speak with the captains about thy case! And for these holy
men," she said to D'Aulon, in a soft voice, "see that they are safely
housed and ministered to in the Church of Monseigneur St. Aignan."

With that I shrank back like a beaten hound, and saw the Maid no more
that night, as fearing her wrath. So was I ad