heavy work, and plenty of it, the two armies hurling each other backward
turn about and about, and victory inclining first to the one, then to the
other. Now all of a sudden thee was a panic on our side. Some say one
thing caused it, some another. Some say the cannonade made our front
ranks think retreat was being cut off by the English, some say the rear
ranks got the idea that Joan was killed. Anyway our men broke, and went
flying in a wild rout for the causeway. Joan tried to rally them and face
them around, crying to them that victory was sure, but it did no good,
they divided and swept by her like a wave. Old D'Aulon begged her to
retreat while there was yet a chance for safety, but she refused; so he
seized her horse's bridle and bore her along with the wreck and ruin in
spite of herself. And so along the causeway they came swarming, that wild
confusion of frenzied men and horses--and the artillery had to stop
firing, of course; consequently the English and Burgundians closed in in
safety, the former in front, the latter behind their prey. Clear to the
boulevard the French were washed in this enveloping inundation; and
there, cornered in an angle formed by the flank of the boulevard and the
slope of the causeway, they bravely fought a hopeless fight, and sank
down one by one.

Flavy, watching from the city wall, ordered the gate to be closed and the
drawbridge raised. This shut Joan out.

The little personal guard around her thinned swiftly. Both of our good
knights went down disabled; Joan's two brothers fell wounded; then Noel
Rainguesson--all wounded while loyally sheltering Joan from blows aimed
at her. When only the Dwarf and the Paladin were left, they would not
give up, but stood their ground stoutly, a pair of steel towers streaked
and splashed with blood; and where the ax of one fell, and the sword of
the other, an enemy gasped and died.