CHAPTER X.
TROYES—HER SAINT AND HER SALVATION.
The siege of Orleans was raised. But it was some time before any feeling of security could be restored to the city; before the rescued citizens could feel sure that the flying squadrons of the nimble Tartar horsemen were not merely wheeling away in some of their bewildering manœuvres, to dash back with redoubled force against the walls.
All that night, therefore, there was anxious watching kept from rampart and tower. Between the almost incredible joy of rescue, and the moans of the wounded and dying, there was little sleep in Orleans that night.
Baithene kept guard near one of the breaches of the shattered walls, and gradually the silence of the deserted fields, so lately the camping-ground of a nation, flowed over him with a sense of deliverance and peace. For some time there was a distant sound of the multitudinous movements of a retreating host; but the sounds were like those of an ebbing tide, growing fainter and fainter and more broken, till they died away altogether, and he felt that the foe was really gone.
Joyful and solemn was the early Eucharist in the cathedral the next morning. Baithene met Ethne at the portal. Bishop Anianus and all the clergy were there. The church was full, and every prayer and anthem went up with the throb of a great multitude. But again in the moment of triumph, as in the moment of anguish, the Eucharistic hymns rose up beyond the moment. Deep in every heart was thanksgiving for rescue from ravage and ruin; but deeper and higher still flowed the eternal tide of joy in the rescue and redemption of the world, not for a moment but for ever, not by a victorious army but by a willing Victim, not through the triumph of force but through the weakness of the Cross. As through the anguish of suspense had risen the Eucharistic song, “We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee,” so through the triumph flowed the tenderness of the Eternal Sacrifice, the love that was perpetually giving itself.
Roman and Gothic soldiers knelt together. Ethne’s head was bowed, and her eyes, when she lifted them, were full of tears. Perhaps alone among that exulting multitude, in her prayers the vanquished and retreating enemy had a share. The ugly brown head of the dying boy so near her brother’s age, his feeble, grateful smile, his groans of pain, were in her heart. Perhaps in that worshipping multitude there were few besides who felt as she did how far the tide of redeeming love might reach from the heart of “the Lamb of God, Who taketh away the sins of the world.”
As they left the church, at the door they met once more the young Roman officer who had watched them from his horse while the Tartar boy was dying. He evidently recognized them, and respectfully made way for them.