While the good monk lingers by her side, pouring into that saintly ear such words of comfort and hope as faith may suggest, the executioner applies his torch and Jeanne sees the flames rush upward. "Jesus!" she cries, then exhorts the monk, "Fly, father! and when the flame shall cover me hold aloft the crucifix, that I may see it as I die, and repeat for me your holy words until the end." She thought of others, not of herself, even in this hour: who shall impugn her courage, or say she knew not how to die as nobly as she had lived? In the first spasm of pain, as the flames touched her body, she shrieked. After this but a few broken sentences came to the ears of those at the foot of the pile, sometimes appeals to the saints who had guided her, sometimes a despairing cry of anguish not to be suppressed. And then in the midst of the gathering flames they saw her head fall forward on her breast as she moaned, "Jesus!" The voice that had aroused France from her lethargy was hushed forever; the great spirit of Jeanne d'Arc had gone to God, whence it came. Shall we stand by the smoking pyre till the last embers turn gray and cold, till Winchester orders the handful of ashes that remained to be swept into the Seine? Or shall we turn away, sick with horror, filled already with vain regret of the deed done, as did many in that dense crowd of her enemies? "We have burnt a saint!" cries one. "I saw a dove fly from her mouth and wing its way to heaven!" avers another. Those who are actors in what the world learns to designate as great historical crises seldom realize the magnitude of the events of which they are immediate witnesses. In spite of the superstitious terror of a few and the pity of many, it is probable that not one in the great crowd hurrying away from the scene of Jeanne d'Arc's martyrdom realized that she was a martyr or that the cause for which she had died was near its hour of triumph. Their fear was but of one whom they deemed a favored ally of the powers of evil; their pity was but for one whom they deemed a simple girl, and for whose anguish they grieved as they would have grieved for that of their own daughters or sisters. The pity of it, that one so young, so gentle, so innocent of worldly taint should suffer this cruel death! After all, 'this is the truest compassion, dispensed with even justice, without regard to person or rank, without thought as to whether the sufferer be the repentant thief or the Divine Master upon the Cross, the nameless woman taken in adultery or this girl of Lorraine who was to be acknowledged as the greatest woman in French history. Yet for us the knowledge that heartless political schemers had tortured to the death a woman becomes knowledge of far more moment when we know that Jeanne d'Arc was the woman, and our indignation against her persecutors is enhanced in proportion to our estimate of the greatness and the goodness of the heroine.