me while I remained with Rutherford, Kennedy, and many others, for what
could we avail to help the Maid? and to run has an ill look, and gives
great heart to an enemy. Moreover, that saying of the Maid came into my
mind, that she should be smitten of a bolt, but not unto death. So I
even abode by the fosse, and having found an arbalest, my desire was to
win a chance of slaying Brother Thomas, wherefore I kept my eyes on that
archere whence he had shot. But no arbalest was pointed thence, and the
fight flagged. On both sides men were weary, and they took some meat as
they might, no ladders being now set on the wall.

Then I deemed it no harm to slip back to the vineyard where the Maid lay,
and there I met the good Father Pasquerel, that was her confessor. He
told me that now she was quiet, either praying or asleep, for he had left
her as still as a babe in its cradle, her page watching her. The bolt
had sped by a rivet of her breast-piece, clean through her breast hard
below the shoulder, and it stood a hand-breadth out beyond. Then she had
wept and trembled, seeing her own blood; but presently, with such might
and courage as was marvel, she had dragged out the bolt with her own
hands. Then they had laid on the wound cotton steeped with olive oil,
for she would not abide that they should steep the bolt with weapon salve
and charm the hurt with a song, as the soldiers desired. Then she had
confessed herself to Pasquerel, and so had lain down among the grass and
the flowers. But it was Pasquerel's desire to let ferry her across
secretly to Orleans. This was an ill hearing for me, yet it was put
about in the army that the Maid had but taken a slight scratch, and again
would lead us on, a thing which I well deemed to be impossible. So the
day waxed late, and few onslaughts were made, and these with no great
heart, the English standing on the walls and openly mocking us.

They asked how it went with the Maid, and whether she would not fain be
at home among her kine, or in the greasy kitchen? We would cry back, and
for my own part I bade them seek the kitchen as pock-puddings and belly-
gods, and that I cried in their own tongue, while they, to my great
amaze, called me "prentice boy" and "jackanapes." Herein I saw the craft
and devilish enmity of Brother Thomas, and well I guessed that he had
gotten sight of me; but his face I saw not.

Ill names break no bones, and arrows from under cover wrought slight
scathe