The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France Part 3

"Good day, shepherdess," said Pierre. Then a strange thought struck him and he fell on his knees. "Pardon, lady," he stammered. "Forgive my rudeness. You are of the high society of heaven, a saint. You are called Jeanne d'Arc?"

She nodded and smiled. "That is my name," said she. "Sometimes they call me _La Pucelle_, or the Maid of France. But you were right, I am a shepherdess, too. I have kept my father's sheep in the fields down there, and spun from the distaff while I watched them. I knew how to sew and spin as well as any girl in the Barrois or Lorraine. Will you not stand up and talk with me?"

Pierre rose, still abashed and confused. He did not quite understand how to take this strange experience--too simple for a heavenly apparition, too real for a common dream.

"Well, then," said he, "if you are a shepherdess why are you here?

There are no sheep here."

"But yes. You are one of mine. I have come here to seek you."

"Do you know me, then? How can I be one of yours?"

"Because you are a soldier of France and you are in trouble."

Pierre's head drooped. "A broken soldier," he muttered, "not fit to speak to you. I am running away because I am afraid of fear."

She threw back her head and laughed. "You speak very bad French. There is no such thing as being afraid of fear. For if you are afraid of it, you hate it. If you hate it, you will have nothing to do with it. And if you have nothing to do with it, it cannot touch you; it is nothing."

"But for you, a saint, it is easy to say that. You had no fear when you fought. You knew you would not be killed."

"I was no more sure of that than the other soldiers. Besides, when they bound me to the stake at Rouen and kindled the fire around me I knew very well that I should be killed. But there was no fear in it. Only peace."

"Ah, you were strong, a warrior born. You were not wounded and broken."

"Four times I was wounded," she answered, gravely. "At Orleans a bolt went through my right shoulder. At Paris a lance tore my thigh. I never saw the blood of Frenchmen flow without feeling my heart stand still. I was not a warrior born. I knew not how to ride or fight. But I did it.

What we must needs do that we can do. Soldier, do not look on the ground. Look up."

Then a strange thing took place before his eyes. A wondrous radiance, a mist of light, enveloped and hid the shepherdess. When it melted she was clad in shining armor, sitting on a white horse, and lifting a bare sword in her left hand.

"G.o.d commands you," she cried. "It is for France. Be of good cheer. Do not retreat. The fort will soon be yours!"

How should Pierre know that this was the cry with which the Maid had rallied her broken men at Orleans when the fort of _Les Toutelles_ fell? What he did know was that something seemed to spring up within him to answer that call. He felt that he would rather die than desert such a leader.

The figure on the horse turned away as if to go.

"Do not leave me," he cried, stretching out his hands to her. "Stay with me. I will obey you joyfully."

She turned again and looked at him very earnestly. Her eyes shone deep into his heart. "Here I cannot stay," answered a low, sweet, womanly voice. "It is late, and my other children need me."

"But forgiveness? Can you give that to me--a coward?"

"You are no coward. Your only fault was to doubt a brave man."

"And my wife? May I go back and tell her?"

"No, surely. Would you make her hear slander of the man she loves? Be what she believes you and she will be satisfied."

"And the absolution, the word of peace? Will you speak that to me?"

Her eyes shone more clearly; the voice sounded sweeter and steadier than ever. "After the penance comes the absolution. You will find peace only at the lance's point. Son of France, go, go, go! I will help you.

Go hardily to Verdun."

Pierre sprang forward after the receding figure, tried to clasp the knee, the foot of the Maid. As he fell to the ground something sharp pierced his hand. It must be her spur, thought he.

Then he was aware that his eyes were shut. He opened them and looked at his hand carefully. There was only a scratch on it, and a tiny drop of blood. He had torn it on the thorns of the wild-gooseberry bushes.

His head lay close to the clear pool of the spring. He buried his face in it, and drank deep. Then he sprang up, shaking the drops from his mustache, found his cap and pistol, and hurried up the glen toward the old Roman road.

"No more of that d.a.m.ned foolishness about Switzerland," he said, aloud.

"I belong to France. I am going with the other boys to save her. I was born for that." He took off his cap and stood still for a moment. He spoke as if he were taking an oath. "By Jeanne d'Arc!"

The Victorious Penance

It never occurred to Pierre Duval, as he trudged those long kilometers toward the front, that he was doing a penance.

The joy of a mind made up is a potent cordial.

The greetings of comrades on the road put gladness into his heart and strength into his legs.

It was a hot and dusty journey, and a sober one. But it was not a sad on. He was doing that which France asked of him, that which G.o.d told him to do. Josephine would be proud of him. He would never be ashamed to meet her eyes. As he went, alone or in company with others, he whistled and sand a bit. He thought of "_L'Alouette_" a good deal. But not too much. He thought also of the forts of Douaumont and Vaux.

"_Dame!_" he cried to himself. "If I could help to win them back again!

That would be fine! How sick that would make those cursed Bodies and their knock-kneed Crown Prince!"

At the little village of the headquarters behind Verdun he found many old friends and companions. They greeted him with cheerful irony.

"Behold the prodigal! You took your time about coming back, didn't you?

Was the hospital to your taste, the nurses pretty? How is the wife? Any more children? How goes it, old man?"

"No more children yet," he answered, grinning; "but all goes well. I have come back from a far country, but I find the pigs are still grunting. What have you done to our old cook?"

"Nothing at all," was the joyous reply. "He tried to swim in his own soup and he was drowned."

When Pierre reported to the officer of the day, that busy functionary consulted the record.

"You are a day ahead of your time, Pierre Duval," he said, frowning slightly.

"Yes, sir," answered the soldier. "It costs less to be a day ahead than a day too late."

"That is well," said the officer, smiling in his red beard. "You will report to-morrow to your regiment at the citadel. You have a new colonel, but the regiment is busy in the old way."

As Pierre saluted and turned to go out his eye caught the look of a general officer who stood near, watching. He was a square, alert, vigorous man, his face bronzed by the suns of many African campaigns, his eyes full of intelligence, humor, and courage. It was Guillaumat, the new commander of the Army of Verdun.

"You are prompt, my son," said he, pleasantly, "but you must remember not to be in a hurry. You have been in hospital. Are you well again?

Nothing broken?"