Serjeant.
Sirs, take your places, and be vigilant:
If any noise or soldier you perceive
Near to the wall, by some apparent sign
Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.

Cent.
Serjeant, you shall. Thus are poor servitors
(When others sleep upon their quiet beds)
Constrain'd to watch in darkness, rain, and cold. Enter Talbot, Bedford, and Burgundy, with scaling ladders. Their drums beating a dead march.

Tal.
Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgundy,
By whose approach the regions of Artois,
Walloon, and Picardy are friends to us;
This happy night the Frenchmen are secure,
Having all day carous'd and banquetted.
Embrace we then this opportunity,
As fitting best to quittance their deceit,
Contriv'd by art and baleful sorcery.

Bed.
Coward of France; how much he wrongs his fame,
Despairing of his own arms fortitude,
To join with witches and the help of hell!

Bur.
Traitors have never other company.
But what's that Pucelle, whom they term so pure?

Tal.
A maid, they say.

Bed.
A maid? and be so martial?

Bur.
Pray God, she prove not masculine ere long,
If underneath the standard of the French
She carry armour, as she hath begun.

Tal.
Well, let them practise and converse with spirits;
God is our fortress, in whose conqu'ring name
Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.

Bed.
Ascend, brave Talbot, we will follow thee.

Tal.
Not all together: better far I guess,
That we do make our entrance several ways:
That if it chance the one of us do fail,
The other yet may rise against their force.

Bed.
Agreed; I'll to yon corner.

Bur.
I to this.

Tal.
And here will Talbot mount, or make his grave.
Now, Salisbury! for thee and for the right
Of English Henry, shall this night appear
How much in duty I am bound to both.

Cent. [within.]
Arm, arm; the enemy doth make assault. [The English, scaling the Walls, Cry, St. George! A Talbot! The French leap o'er the walls in their shirts. Enter, several ways, Bastard, Alanson, Reignier, half ready and half unready.

Alan.
How now, my lords? what all unready so?

Bast.
Unready? I, and glad we 'scap'd so well.

Reig.
'Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds;
Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.

Alan.
Of all exploits, since first I follow'd arms,
Ne'er heard I of a warlike enterprize
More venturous, or desperate than this.

Bast.
I think, this Talbot is a fiend of hell.

Reig.
If not of hell, the heav'ns, sure, favour him.

Alan.
Here cometh Charles, I marvel how he sped. Enter Charles and Joan.

Bast.
Tut! holy Joan was his defensive guard.

Char.
Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame?
Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal,

Make us partakers of a little gain;
That now our loss might be ten times as much?

Pucel.
Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend?
At all times will you have my pow'r alike?
Sleeping, or waking, must I still prevail?
Or will you blame and lay the fault on me?
Improvident soldiers, had your watch been good,
This sudden mischief never could have fal'n.

Char.
Duke of Alanson, this was your default,
That, being captain of the watch to night,
Did look no better to that weighty charge.

Alan.
Had all your quarters been as safely kept,
As that whereof I had the government,
We had not been thus shamefully surpriz'd.

Bast.
Mine was secure.

Reig.
And so was mine, my lord.

Char.
And for my self, most part of all this night,
Within her quarter, and mine own precinct,
I was employ'd in passing to and fro,
About relieving of the centinels.
Then how, or which way, should they first break in?

Pucel.
Question, my lords, no further of the case,
How, or which way; 'tis sure, they found some part
But weakly guarded, where the breach was made:
And now there rests no other shift but this,
To gather our soldiers, scatter'd and disperst,
And lay new platforms to endamage them. [Exeunt.

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