“Nenni, nenni,” returned Jeanne. “I can bring them in safely.”
At this moment there came a ringing shout from Jacques D’Arc:
“Leave the cattle and sheep, friends! Make for the castle! The foe is upon us.”
The terrified people glanced down the highroad along which the raiding party was approaching. There was but scant time to reach the fortress, and, as Jacques D’Arc had seen, it could only be done without encumbrance. Leaving the animals forthwith the villagers broke into a run, while Jacques hastened to his children.
“Father, I know that I could––” began Jeanne, but her father interrupted her vehemently,
“Talk not, but run, my little one. There is no time to lose.”
The castle stood on an island formed by two arms of the Meuse. Belonging to it was a courtyard provided with means of defense, and a large garden surrounded by a moat wide and deep. It was commonly called the Fortress of the Island. It had been the abode of those fair ladies and brave lords who were wont in the olden time to dance about the Fairy Tree. The last of the lords having died without children the property passed to his niece. The lady married a baron of Lorraine with whom she went to reside at the ducal court of Nancy, thus leaving it uninhabited. Wishing to have a place of retreat from attacks of marauding parties Jacques D’Arc and another man, on behalf of the villagers, leased the castle from the lady for a term of nine years.
The precaution had been useful on many occasions, but upon this bright, May morning it proved futile so far as the property of the villagers was concerned. The approach of the marauders was too rapid to permit the poor people to do more than to reach the castle in safety. Jacques D’Arc and his two children were the last to cross the drawbridge, which was instantly drawn up, and the gate was closed. They were safe, for it was a place that ten could hold against ten hundred.
Through the loop-holes the villagers beheld the scene that followed. With terrifying cries the raiders rode into the hamlet. Some rounded up the cattle and sheep preparatory to 42 driving them off; others hitched oxen to carts and drove them to the middle of the village, where still others piled the furniture from the cottages into the carts. Silent and tearless the hapless inhabitants watched while the hearths of their homes were torn up, and mantels demolished in the search for hidden treasure. Even the church was not exempt from the pillage. And then, that no part of misery might be spared to Domremy, the plunderers applied the torch to the houses.