ed from my mother the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the
Belief. All that I know was taught me by my mother."

Questions of this unessential sort dribbled on for a considerable time.
Everybody was tired out by now, except Joan. The tribunal prepared to
rise. At this point Cauchon forbade Joan to try to escape from prison,
upon pain of being held guilty of the crime of heresy--singular logic!
She answered simply:

"I am not bound by this proposition. If I could escape I would not
reproach myself, for I have given no promise, and I shall not."

Then she complained of the burden of her chains, and asked that they
might be removed, for she was strongly guarded in that dungeon and there
was no need of them. But the Bishop refused, and reminded her that she
had broken out of prison twice before. Joan of Arc was too proud to
insist. She only said, as she rose to go with the guard:

"It is true, I have wanted to escape, and I do want to escape." Then she
added, in a way that would touch the pity of anybody, I think, "It is
the right of every prisoner."

And so she went from the place in the midst of an impressive stillness,
which made the sharper and more distressful to me the clank of those
pathetic chains.

What presence of mind she had! One could never surprise her out of it.
She saw Noel and me there when she first took her seat on the bench,
and we flushed to the forehead with excitement and emotion, but her face
showed nothing, betrayed nothing. Her eyes sought us fifty times that
day, but they passed on and there was never any ray of recognition in
them. Another would have started upon seeing us, and then--why, then
there could have been trouble for us, of course.

We walked slowly home together, each busy with his own grief and saying
not a word.

(1) He kept his word. His account of the Great Trial will be found to
be in strict and detailed accordance with the sworn facts of history.
--TRANSLATOR.

6 The Maid Baffles Her Persecutors

THAT NIGHT Manchon told me that all through the day's proceedings
Cauchon had had some clerks concealed in the embrasure of a window who
were to make a special report garbling Joan's answers and twisting them
from their right meaning. Ah, that was surely the cruelest man and the
most shameless that has lived in this world. But his scheme failed.
Those clerks had human hearts in them, and their base work revolted
them, and they turned to and boldly made a straight report