第50章 OF THE FIGHTING AT LES AUGUSTINS AND THE PROPHECY

"Charge!"cried the Maid."Forward,French and Scots;the place is yours,when once my banner fringe touches the wall!"With that word the wind blew out the banner fringe,and so suddenly that,though I saw the matter,I scarce knew how it was done,the whole host swarmed up and on,ladders,lifted,and so furiously went they,that they won the wall crest and leaped within the fort.Then the more part of the English,adread,as I think,at the sight of the Maid whom they had deemed slain,fled madly over the drawbridge into Les Tourelles.

Then standing on the wall crest,whither I had climbed,I beheld strange sights.First,through the dimness of the dusk,I saw a man armed,walking as does a rope-dancer,balancing himself with his spear,across the empty air,for so it seemed,above the broken arch of the bridge.This appeared,in very sooth,to be a miracle;but,gazing longer,I saw that a great beam had been laid by them of Orleans to span the gap,and now other beams were being set,and many men,bearing torches,were following that good knight,Nicole Giresme,who first showed the way over such a bridge of dread.So now were the English in Les Tourelles between two fires.

Another strange sight I saw,for in that swift and narrow stream which the drawbridge spanned whereby the English fled was moored a great black barge,its stem and stern showing on either side of the bridge.Boats were being swiftly pulled forth from it into the stream,and as I gazed,there leaped up through the dark one long tongue of fire.Then I saw the skill of it,namely,to burn down the drawbridge,and so cut the English off from all succour.Fed with pitch and pine the flame soared lustily,and now it shone between the planks of the drawbridge.On the stone platform of the boulevard,wherein the drawbridge was laid,stood a few English,and above them shone the axe of a tall squire,Glasdale,as it fell on shield and helm of the French.Others held us at bay with long lances,and never saw I any knight do his devoir more fiercely than he who had reviled the Maid.For on his head lay all the blame of the taking of the boulevard.To rear of him rang the shouts of them of Orleans,who had crossed the broken arch by the beam;but he never turned about,and our men reeled back before him.Then there shone behind him the flames from the blazing barge;and so,black against that blaze,he smote and slew,not knowing that the drawbridge began to burn.

On this the Maid ran forth,and cried to him -"Rends-toi,rends-toi!Yield thee,Glacidas;yield thee,for Istand in much sorrow for thy soul's sake."Then,falling on her knees,her face shining transfigured in that fierce light,she prayed him thus -"Ah!Glacidas,thou didst call me ribaulde,but I have sorrow for thy soul.Ah!yield thee,yield thee to ransom";and the tears ran down her cheeks,as if a saint were praying for a soul in peril.

Not one word spoke Glasdale:he neither saw nor heard.But the levelled spears at his side flew up,a flame caught his crest,making a plume of fire,and with a curse he cast his axe among the throng,and the man who stood in front of it got his death.

Glasdale turned about as he threw;he leaped upon the burning drawbridge,where the last of his men were huddled in flight,and lo!beneath his feet it crashed;down he plunged through smoke and flame,and the stream below surged up as bridge and flying men went under in one ruin.

The Maid gave a cry that rang above the roar of fire and water.

"Saints!will no man save him?"she shrieked,looking all around her on the faces of the French.

A mad thought leaped up in my mind.

"Unharness me!"I cried;and one who stood by me undid the clasps of my light jaseran.I saw a head unhelmeted,I saw a hand that clutched at a floating beam.I thought of the Maid's desire,and of the ransom of so great a squire as Glasdale,and then I threw my hands up to dive,and leaped head foremost into the water.

Deep down I plunged,and swam far under water,to avoid a stroke from floating timber,and then I rose and glanced up-stream.All the air was fiercely lit with the blaze of the burning barge;a hand and arm would rise,and fall ere I could seize it.A hand was thrown up before me,the glinting fingers gripping at empty air.Icaught the hand,swimming strongly with the current,for so the man could not clutch at me,and if a drowning man can be held apart,it is no great skill to save him.In this art I was not unlearned,and once had even saved two men from a wrecked barque in the long surf of St.Andrews Bay.Save for a blow from some great floating timber,I deemed that I had little to fear;nay,now I felt sure of the Maid's praise and of a rich ransom.

A horn of bank with alder bushes ran out into the stream,a smooth eddy or backwater curling within.I caught a bough of alder,and,though nigh carried down by the drowning man's weight,I found bottom,yet hardly,and drew my man within the back-water.He lay like a log,his face in the stream.Pushing him before me,Irounded the horn,and,with much ado,dragged him up to a sloping gravelly beach,where I got his head on dry land,his legs being still in the water.I turned him over and looked eagerly.Lo!it was no Glasdale,but the drowned face of Brother Thomas!

Then something seemed to break in my breast;blood gushed from my mouth,and I fell on the sand and gravel.Footsteps I heard of men running to us.I lifted my hand faintly and waved it,and then Ifelt a hand on my face.