A mighty cheer went up from the English who believed that in drawing the blood of the witch they had drawn her power too. And for a time it seemed as if this really were so, for Jeanne's wound was very painful and she seemed no longer a warrior, but a pitiful little girl, overcome with tears and faintness. At last, however, when her steel shirt had been removed, she grasped the arrow with her own hands and drew it from the wound. And after this she rose and insisted on donning her armor once more.
The French had seen her fall and their courage had left them, and they were in full retreat when Jeanne returned to the battle.
"In God's name," she cried, riding toward them, "forward once more. Do not fly when the place is almost ours. One more brave charge and I promise you shall succeed."
The English were still rejoicing at what they had accomplished when to their dismay the French trumpets blew the charge again and they beheld the Maid with her white standard directly beneath their walls. And they considered that her return to the fight was nothing less than magical and fear gripped their hearts. Then the French swarmed up the scaling ladders like monkeys, leaped over the ramparts, and a horrible din arose from the interior of the fort, where, amid oaths and outcries and the clangor and crash of axes and meeting shields, the English were savagely slaughtered.
Glasdale, the same leader who had threatened Jeanne from the English camp, was guarding the retreat of his men as they ran across a bridge over the Loire, but the French brought up and set fire to an old barge piled high with straw, tar, sulphur and all kinds of inflammable material, and the only escape for the English lay directly through the flames.
Jeanne, on seeing this, was smitten with great pity for her enemies.
"Yield, Glasdale, yield!" she cried. "Thou hast called me witch, thou hast basely insulted me, but I have great pity on your soul."
But the brave English captain refused to give in and continued to guard the escape of his comrades. When all had passed through the smoke and flame he tried himself to rush across--but the planks were now eaten through with fire and would not hold him. With a crash of breaking timbers he plunged into the river beneath, where the weight of his armor pulled him down and he was drowned.