untless
as she was in battle, she was human also. She was not solely a saint,
an angel, she was a clay-made girl also--as human a girl as any in
the world, and full of a human girl's sensitiveness and tenderness and
delicacies. And so, that death! No, she could not have lived the three
months with that one before her, I think. You remember that the first
time she was wounded she was frightened, and cried, just as any other
girl of seventeen would have done, although she had known for eighteen
days that she was going to be wounded on that very day. No, she was
not afraid of any ordinary death, and an ordinary death was what she
believed the prophecy of deliverance meant, I think, for her face showed
happiness, not horror, when she uttered it.

Now I will explain why I think as I do. Five weeks before she was
captured in the battle of Compiegne, her Voices told her what was
coming. They did not tell her the day or the place, but said she would
be taken prisoner and that it would be before the feast of St. John.
She begged that death, certain and swift, should be her fate, and the
captivity brief; for she was a free spirit, and dreaded the confinement.
The Voices made no promise, but only told her to bear whatever came. Now
as they did not refuse the swift death, a hopeful young thing like Joan
would naturally cherish that fact and make the most of it, allowing it
to grow and establish itself in her mind. And so now that she was told
she was to be "delivered" in three months, I think she believed it meant
that she would die in her bed in the prison, and that that was why she
looked happy and content--the gates of Paradise standing open for her,
the time so short, you see, her troubles so soon to be over, her reward
so close at hand. Yes, that would make her look happy, that would make
her patient and bold, and able to fight her fight out like a soldier.
Save herself if she could, of course, and try for the best, for that
was the way she was made; but die with her face to the front if die she
must.

Then later, when she charged Cauchon with trying to kill her with a
poisoned fish, her notion that she was to be "delivered" by death in the
prison--if she had it, and I believe she had--would naturally be greatly
strengthened, you see.

But I am wandering from the trial. Joan was asked to definitely name the
time that she would be delivered from prison.

"I have always said that I was not permitted to tell you everything. I