“I pray you in the dear name of your lady mother, Madame du Lys.”
“I shall be delivered,” she said, “and with great victory!”
“Now I pray thee in my own name, and in that of thy first friend, my lady. She has made a vow to give her virginity to Heaven unless either thou art set free, or she have tidings from thee that thou willest her to wed me, without whom I have no desire to live, but far rather this very night to perish. For I am clean confessed, within these six hours, knowing that I was like to be in some jeopardy.”
“Then,” she said, smiling sweetly, and signing that I should take her hand—“Then live, Norman Leslie, for this is to me an easy thing and a joyous. Thou art a clerk, hast thou wherewithal to write?”
“Yes, Madame, here in my wallet.”
“Then write as I tell thee:—
“JHESU MARIA”
“‘I, Jehanne la Pucelle, send from prison here in Rouen my tidings of love to Elliot Hume, my first friend among women, and bid her, for my sake, wed him who loves her, Norman Leslie of Pitcullo, my faithful servant, praying that all happiness may go with them. In witness whereto, my hand being guided to write, I set my name, Jehanne la Pucelle, this ninth day of May, in the year Fourteen hundred and thirty-one.’
“So guide my hand,” she said, taking the pen from my fingers; and thus guided, while my tears fell on her hand, she wrote JEHANNE LA PUCELLE.
“Now,” quoth she, smiling as of old, “we must seal this missive. Cut off one lock of my hair with your dagger, for my last gift to my first friend, and make the seal all orderly.”
I did as she bade, and, bringing a lighted stick from the brazier, I melted wax. Then, when it was smooth, she laid on it two hairs from the little sundered lock (as was sometimes her custom), and bade me seal with my own signet, and put the brief in my wallet.