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The fellow looked at the seal, and could not but acknowledge the arms of France thereon. He dropped his fauchard over his shoulder, and stood aside, staring impudently at the Maiden, and muttering foul words. "So this is the renowned Pucelle," he cried; "by God's name" . . . and here he spoke words such as I may not set down in writing, blaspheming God and the Maid.
We gripped and swayed for a moment, then the staff of his fauchard coming between his legs, he tripped and fell, I above him; our weight soused against the low pales of the bridge side, that were crazy and old; there was a crash, and I felt myself in mid-air, failing to the moat far below us. Down and down I whirled, and then the deep water closed over me.
She passed, with her two gentlemen, but the French sentinel barred the way, holding his fauchard thwartwise. "On what business come you, and by what right?" he cried, in a rude voice. "By the Dauphin's gracious command, to see the Dauphin," said one of the gentlemen right courteously. "Here is his own letter, and you may know the seal, bidding La Pucelle to come before him at this hour."
On the drawbridge, standing sentinel, was a French man-at-arms, a young man of my own age, armed with a long fauchard, which we call a bill or halberd, a weapon not unlike the Lochaber axes of the Highlandmen. Other soldiers, French, Scottish, Spaniards, Germans, a mixed company, were idling and dicing just within the gate.
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