Back from her long excursion around the ramparts of Orleans in the company of Master John, Joan said to Gaucourt and other chiefs who called upon her, that she had consulted her voices and they advised a simultaneous attack on the next day, Sunday, by all the combined forces of the army upon the bastille of the Tournelles to the end of first of all freeing the head of the Orleans bridge, opening the roads from the side of Beauce for the entry of provisions, which the town began to run short of, and facilitating the entrance of the reinforcements that had been ordered from Tours and Blois. The captains crossed themselves at hearing the Maid, a daughter of God, propose such an enormity--to fight on Sunday! Would that not, they remonstrated with Joan, be to inaugurate her arms with a sacrilege? As to themselves, sooner should their hands shrivel than draw their swords on that day, a day devoted to rest and prayer! In vain did Joan cry: "Oh, sirs! He prays who fights for the welfare of Gaul!" The captains remained unshakable in their orthodoxy on the pious observance of the dominical rest. Much against her will Joan saw herself compelled to postpone the plan for Monday, but desirous of turning the postponement to account and avoiding all she could the effusion of blood that she had such a horror of, she requested her equerry Daulon to write at her dictation another and short letter to the English, the first one having been forwarded to them from Blois by a herald. The missive having been written and signed with her name, Joan attached to it her "cross in God" in the fashion of a counter-sign, placed the parchment in her leathern girdle-pouch and invited the captains to accompany her to the ramparts on the Loire that faced the bastille of the Tournelles, occupied by the English. The warrior maid wished once more to examine the important position, preparatorily to the Monday attack. The request was complied with, and several captains accompanied her, in the midst of a large concourse of people, of soldiers and of mercenaries, no less enthusiastic than the previous evening, to the gate of the little castle on the river. Joan advanced to the edge of the boulevard of the bridge, so near to the bastille of the Tournelles, that the voice of the besieged could be heard by the besiegers. A large number of the Orleans militiamen were on guard upon the embattled platform of their own entrenchment which was equipped with ballistas and other engines of war used in hurling bolts and large stones. Transported with joy at the sight of the Maid in their midst, the good people surrounded her and inquired with martial ardor and impatience: "When will the assault be?" She promised it for Monday, and ordered them to raise a white flag in order to propose a truce of an hour to the English at the Tournelles, to whom she desired to speak. The flag of peace rose in the air, the besiegers answered with a like signal