Cauchon, hoping that now some word of denouncement against her King might be uttered, came to the foot of the scaffold; once again she cried to him:
“Bishop, I die through you.”
Only once did her spirit falter. When the executioner applied the torch to the faggots, and a dense volume of smoke rolled up she gasped,
“Water, holy water!”
Then, in quick forgetfulness of self, for Brother Isambard still remained with her, though the pitiless flames had already begun to ascend––she bade him go down lest the fire should catch his robes. And so at last she was left alone.
Upward leaped the red flames, eager for their prey; upward curled the dense, suffocating smoke; the air quivered and whirled with red, stifling heat; and suddenly, from out of that fiery, awful furnace, there came the clarion tones of the Maid, clear as on the battle field, exultant with the triumph of a great victory:
“My Voices were from God! They have not deceived me! Jesus! Jesus!”
And so died the Maid; a martyr, not for religion, but for her country. She died, but the lesson of her life lives on: faith and work; for by these two may marvels be wrought and the destiny of nations changed.
“The men-at-arms will fight; God will give the victory.”