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Updated: June 17, 2025
It was a vast hall, hung with green velvet broidered with golden flowers, and contained a very remarkable collection of weapons and armour, breast-plates, battle-axes, and swords, almost all of which had belonged to the Buongiovannis of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Dense masses of dust hid them and their riders; but it was certainly an armed troop that was coming clattering onwards, for flashing gleams were seen here and there through the dull clouds that shrouded them, the reflection of the sun's bright rays from polished and glittering helmets, breast-plates, and sabres. Now they were visible even where the Vekeel was.
The combatants rose off the ground so high that Michele's head and the giant's head and shoulders were frequently lost in the clouds; and they clanked down again upon the sandy shore two or three feet in front of where they had stood or behind, just as it happened; and their swords banged against their breast-plates and shields, proving that they were real metal and not merely tinsel; and they twirled round and round like beef on a roasting-jack, until at last Michele dealt the inevitable blow and the giant fell dead on the sand with a thud that jolted the coast, shook the islands, rippled across the sunset sky and restored animation to the lifeless form of the princess.
Cups, necklaces, finger-rings, clasps, sword- hilts, and breast-plates, the latter studded with rough, uncut jewels of enormous size, filled the chest to the very brim, and took away Jim's breath with the magnificence and lavish abundance of it all.
"Magnifique, mais c'est vraiment magnifique," muttered my brother to himself, as the superb life-guards swept along with their polished steel helmets and breast-plates glittering like silver in the sunshine, and their plumes and guidons flashing and twinkling in the breeze. "Dieu de dieu! qu'ils sont geants les cavaliers, qu'ils sont colossaux les chevaux.
Commanded by Jahveh to kill, extermination was but an act of piety. It was then, perhaps, that the Wars of Jahveh were sung, a pæan that must have been resonant with cries, with the death-rattle of kingdoms, with the shouts of the invading host. From the breast-plates of the chosen, the terror of Sinai gleamed. Men could not see their faces and live. The moon was their servant.
Soon it became apparent that the day belonged to the better-armed combatants; the soft copper swords of the Britons had been blunted upon the steel breast-plates of the Romans, while their own wooden shields were hacked to pieces by the Roman swords. In a short time the Britons were flying in all directions, unable any longer to resist the Romans.
They were terrified, they knew not why nor at what, and, throwing away swords, lances, breast-plates, crossbows, everything that could impede their motions, scattered themselves wildly in every direction. They fled without pursuers from the glimpse of each other's arms, from the sound of each other's footsteps.
There were upon the walls some shelves filled with volumes and all the old paraphernalia of a fencing-room: broken masks, rusty foils, breast-plates, and gloves that were losing their tow.
I asked him if the boys didn't all wear breast-plates, and he said "naw!" He told me that was the only breast-plate in the whole Department of the Gulf, and it was kept to play on recruits, and that I must keep it until a new recruit came that was green enough to allow the boys to do him up.
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