the roving Burgundians, or the advance of the English towards
Orleans, then these darker moods would fall upon him; and once when
he had sat for well-nigh an hour without moving, his brow drawn and
furrowed, and his eyes seemingly sunk deeper in his head, Bertrand
leaned towards me and whispered in mine ear:

"He is thinking of the Maid of Domremy!"

De Baudricourt could not have heard the words, yet when he spoke a
brief while later, it almost seemed as though he might have done
so.

"Nephew," he said, lifting his head abruptly and gazing across at
us, "tell me again the words of that prophecy of Merlin's, spoken
long, long ago, of which men whisper in these days, and of which
you did speak to me awhile back."

"Marry, good mine uncle, the prophecy runs thus," answered
Bertrand, rising and crossing over towards the great fire before
which his kinsman sat, "'That France should be destroyed by the
wiles of a woman, and saved and redeemed by a maiden.'"

The bushy brows met in a fierce scowl over the burning eyes; his
words came in a great burst of indignation and scorn.

"Ay, truly--he spake truly--the wise man--the wizard! A woman to be
the ruin of the kingdom! Ay, verily, and has it not been so? Who
but that wicked Queen Isabeau is at the bottom of the disgraceful
Treaty of Troyes, wherein France sold herself into the hands of the
English? Did she not repudiate her own son? Did not her hatred burn