he two other
stanchions, considering that they, by themselves, would bear my weight,
but if not, rather choosing to trust my soul to the Saints than my body
to the English.

The deep below me was very terrible to look upon, and the casement being
above the dry ditch, I had no water to break my fall, if fall I must.
Howbeit, I hardened my heart, and turning my face to the wall, holding
first the wooden bar, and then shifting my grasp to the rope, I let
myself down, clinging to the rope with my legs, and at first not a little
helped by the knots I had made to climb to the casement. When I had
passed these, methought my hands were on fire; nevertheless, I slid down
slowly and with caution, till my feet touched ground.

I was now in the dry ditch, above my head creaked and swung the dead body
of the hanged marauder, but he did no whit affray me. I ran, stooping,
along the bed of the dry ditch, for many yards, stumbling over the bodies
of men slain in yesterday's fight, and then, creeping out, I found a
hollow way between two slopes, and thence crawled into a wood, where I
lay some little space hidden by the boughs. The smell of trees and grass
and the keen air were like wine to me; I cooled my bleeding hands in the
deep dew; and presently, in the dawn, I was stealing towards St. Denis,
taking such cover of ditches and hedges as we had sought in our unhappy
march of yesterday. And I so sped, by favour of the Saints, that I fell
in with no marauders; but reaching the windmill right early, at first
trumpet-call, I was hailed by our sentinels for the only man that had won
in and out of Paris, and had carried off, moreover, a prisoner, the
jackanapes. To see me, scarred, with manacles on my wrists and gyves on
my ankles, weaponless, with an ape on my shoulder, was such a sight as
the Scots Guard had never beheld before, and carrying me to the smith's,
they first knocked off my irons, and gave me wine, ere they either asked
me for my tale, or told me their own, which was a heartbreak to bear.

For no man could unfold the manner of that which had come to pass, if, at
least, there were not strong treason at the root of all. For our part of
the onfall, the English had made but a feigned attack on the mill,
wherefore the bale-fires were lit, to our undoing. This was the ruse de
guerre of the accursed cordelier, Brother Thomas. For the rest, the Maid
had led on a band to attack the gate St. Honore, with Gaucourt in her
compa