With the last word she suddenly disappeared, for the heavy tramp of men’s feet was heard in the antechamber. The interruption displeased the Dauphin, and he was about to leave the room, but before he could do so the new-comers stood at the door. It only increased his displeasure that he was forced to remain. The two men, whom he regarded with a sinister expression, were rough and sturdy, men of the class who stand fast in battle and look death fearlessly in the eye, knights in the truest sense of the word.
“So quickly back, my brave La Hire?” said Charles to one of them.
“By Our Lady, Your Majesty, never was there greater need for quick and decisive action than now,” was his reply. “I have just heard that Count Salisbury has completely invested the city of Orleans. Not even a cat can get out of it, and in a few weeks it will be in the clutches of famine. If we do not help them you can easily see—”
“Help them!” interrupted the Dauphin, despondently. “My good knight, how much money do you suppose there is in my treasury? Ha! ha!”
“The people will see to it that the treasury of their legitimate King is filled if in turn they have the assurance that he will make a stand for the right, for his honor, and for the fatherland.”
“And until then I suppose I can keep on with my fasting cure to which my mother accustomed me. You will not believe it, my good La Hire, but it is the sad truth that my cook has notified me he has nothing to serve to-day but a pair of fowls and a hind-quarter of mutton. And you are to be invited as guests to such a banquet as that!”
“Well, sire, that is all right. To-day we will eat the fowls and the mutton; to-morrow we will drive the English out of their kitchens, and seat ourselves at their tables.”
“But how are we going to drive them out? It is impossible. Can I summon troops out of the ground?”
“Yes, sire, you can!”
The Dauphin looked at him with astonishment.