Of a truth, the mind cannot grasp it all, eyes cannot see nor ears perceive all the horrors, the misery and the devotion. Men fighting and women working to soothe, to comfort or to heal. Burghers' wives, humble maids, great ladies, are all fighting with the men, fighting with their hearts and their skilled hands, with clean bandages and soothing potions, with words of comfort for the dying and prayers for the dead.
In the streets behind the ramparts, rough ambulances have been set up, mattresses dragged under sheds or outhouses, fresh straw laid, on which the wounded might find momentary solace. The women, too, are doing their part. Jacqueline de Broyart, one of the many, the most untiring where all give of their best, the most selfless where all are ready for sacrifice. From time to time during the lull between terrific assaults, she sees Gilles hurrying past—her knight, the defender of her beloved city. She bade him go and save Cambray and sees him now, begrimed, in rags, unheedful even of her, but cheerful and undaunted, certain of victory.
'You will be proud, my dear,' says d'Inchy to her, during one of those nerve-racking lulls, 'to place your hand in that so valiant a soldier, to plight your troth to Monsieur Duc d'Anjou.'
'I shall be proud,' she retorts simply, 'if, indeed, I might plight my troth to the defender of Cambray.'
'The defender of Cambray, my dear,' rejoins d'Inchy lustily. 'The saviour of Cambray, you mean! 'Tis on our knees we shall have to thank him and offer him all that we have of the best!'
A strange, elusive smile flits for a moment round Jacqueline's mouth, and a look of infinite longing softens the light of her blue eyes.
'If only it could be!' she sighs, and returns to her task.
III
Later in the afternoon, the picture becomes more clear. We see the crumbling walls, the girdle around Cambray falling away bit by bit; we see the breach at Cantimpré wider by many feet now and a handful of men making a last stand there, with muskets, crossbows, sticks—anything that is ready to hand. We see the bastions a mass of smouldering ruins and the ramparts around on the point of giving way.
And all about the city a mighty hecatomb—Spaniards and Flemings, soldiers, burghers or churls, lie scattered on the low-lying ground, in the moat, the ramparts or the streets. Might and glory have claimed their victims as well as valour and worship of liberty.