This deplorable decision afforded the English time to recover from the stupor of their defeat; it also ran the risk of losing the fruits of Joan's first victory. The blindness, the perfidy or the cowardice of the captains filled her with indignation. Steeped in sorrow she withdrew to her own room where, all in tears, she knelt down and implored the advice of her good saints; and with her eyes still wet with tears that her friend Madeleine wiped in sadness and surprise, unable to understand the cause of her friend's grief after so glorious a day, Joan fell asleep, evoking in thought as a means of solace the passage of the prophecy so miraculously fulfilled, in which Merlin announced: "Oh, how much blood do I see! How much blood do I see! It steams! Its vapor rises, rises like an autumn mist to heaven, Where the thunder peals and the lightning flashes!-- Across that crimson mist, I see a martial virgin; White is her steed, white is her armor-- She battles, she battles, she battles still, In the midst of a forest of lances, And seems to be riding on the backs of the enemy's archers!" CHAPTER VII. THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1429. Despite the ingenuousness of her loyal nature, Joan could no longer doubt the ill will or jealousy of the captains. They hypocritically invoked the sanctity of the feast of the Ascension merely for the purpose of paralyzing her movements by calculated inertia. In this extremity she asked the advice of her mysterious "voices," and these were now more than ever the echo of her excellent judgment, of her patriotism and of her military genius. The mysterious "voices" answered: "These captains, like almost all the nobles who make of war a trade, are devoured with envy. Their jealous hatred is irritated at you, poor child of the field, because your genius crushes them. They would prefer to see the English take possession of Orleans rather than have the siege raised by your valor. They may perhaps not dare openly to refuse to second you, fearing to arouse the indignation of their own soldiers, above all of the bourgeois militiamen and of the people of Orleans. But these captains will traitorously resist your plans until the day when the general exasperation will compel them to follow you with their bands of mercenaries. Accordingly, you can rely for the accomplishment of your mission of liberation only upon yourself, and upon the councilmen and the town militia of Orleans. These do not fight out of vainglory or as a trade; they fight in the defence of their hearths, their families, their town. These love and respect you. You are their redeeming angel. Their confidence in you, increased by the victory of yesterday, is to-day boundless. Lean boldly upon these loyal people; you will triumph over the envious and the enemy combined; and you will triumph with the aid of God."