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The Spartan beheld the air darkened with shafts and arrows, and knew that his heavy-armed warriors were ill adapted to act against horse. He in vain endeavoured to arouse those about him by appeals to their honour all declined the succour of the Megarians when Aristides, causing the Athenian to eclipse the Spartan chivalry, undertook the defence.

The king yielded to the impetuous cry of his victorious troops demanding the continuance of the conflict, and hastily drew up his heavy-armed soldiers for the battle, which neither general nor soldiers had expected on that day. It was important to occupy the hill, which for the moment was quite denuded of troops.

The masts had been lowered. On the cat-heads hung the anchors weighted with stone to fend off an enemy, astern towed the pinnace ready to drag alongside and break the force of the hostile ram. The heavy-armed marines stood with their long boarding spears, to lead an attack or cast off grappling-irons. But the true weapon of the Nausicaä was herself.

To none of these miserable creatures remained a living protector hardly even a dead body which could be recognized; and thus the ghastly procession of more than three thousand women, many with gaping wounds in the face, many with their arms cut off and festering, of all ranks and ages, some numbering more than ninety years, bareheaded, with grey hair streaming upon their shoulders; others with nursing infants in their arms, all escorted by a company of heavy-armed troopers, left forever their native city.

The heavy-armed foot were bidden first to advance upon the entrenchments which crowned the opposite hill, and to break the infantry of the enemy, which was drawn up before them in formidable array; this done, the horse were immediately to avail themselves of the opening thus made, and the entrenchments to be assaulted by both cavalry and infantry.

But his men, being heavy-armed, could not pursue them in any way owing to the weight of their armor, and were endeavoring to protect the unarmed, who had been saved from the fleet.

Cooey-na-gall, a celebrated captain of the O'Kanes, is represented on his tomb at Dungiven as clad in complete armour though that may be the fancy of the sculptor. Scottish gallowglasses heavy-armed infantry, trained in Bruce's campaigns, were permanently enlisted in their service.

The heavy-armed cavalry, with their corselets of bronze, and swords and long spears, entered the larger vessels; two men, standing in the stern of every boat, holding the bridles of three or four horses which were swimming after them.

Should the heavy-armed horsemen succeed in crossing this marshy and broken ground and reach the firm soil in the Scottish front, they would find themselves in a worse strait still. For Bruce had his men dig a great number of holes as deep as a man's knee.

They are said to have amounted to eighteen hundred ships: the number betrays their inconsiderable size; and of the twenty stout and capacious vessels, whose magnitude impeded their progress, each was manned with no more than one hundred heavy-armed soldiers.