known at headquarters. Some of the men had been trying to understand why
Joan continued to be alert, vigorous, and confident while the strongest
men in the company were fagged with the heavy marches and exposure and
were become morose and irritable. There, it shows you how men can have
eyes and yet not see. All their lives those men had seen their own
women-folks hitched up with a cow and dragging the plow in the fields
while the men did the driving. They had also seen other evidences that
women have far more endurance and patience and fortitude than men--but
what good had their seeing these things been to them? None. It had taught
them nothing. They were still surprised to see a girl of seventeen bear
the fatigues of war better than trained veterans of the army. Moreover,
they did not reflect that a great soul, with a great purpose, can make a
weak body strong and keep it so; and here was the greatest soul in the
universe; but how could they know that, those dumb creatures? No, they
knew nothing, and their reasonings were of a piece with their ignorance.
They argued and discussed among themselves, with Noel listening, and
arrived at the decision that Joan was a witch, and had her strange pluck
and strength from Satan; so they made a plan to watch for a safe
opportunity to take her life.

To have secret plottings of this sort going on in our midst was a very
serious business, of course, and the knights asked Joan's permission to
hang the plotters, but she refused without hesitancy. She said:

"Neither these men nor any others can take my life before my mission is
accomplished, therefore why should I have their blood upon my hands? I
will inform them of this, and also admonish them. Call them before me."

When the came she made that statement to them in a plain matter-of-fact
way, and just as if the thought never entered her mind that any one could