116 THE TUSCAN WARRIORS. 



though not fore-warned, they were always fore-armed. Like 

 the knightly "ten" of Branksholme, who 



" quitted not their harness bright, 



Neither by day nor yet by night," 



they always ate, drank, worked, even nursed in their coats of 

 mail ; never laid down their arms, and always carried their 

 ammunition about them. Having, therefore, no belts to buckle, 

 no guns to load, no horses to saddle, the defending force was 

 presently mustered, and issuing in various divisions from the 

 city gates, left few within its walls, or to speak more cor- 

 rectly; within the protecting dome by which it was surmounted, 

 except the cowardly and helpless ; to wit, the masculine por- 

 tion of its inhabitants, wholly made up of effeminate lords 

 who always hung about the court ; the numerous infant 

 families which claimed the queens (of which there were three) 

 for mothers ; their Fuscan majesties themselves, with several 

 princesses ; and besides these, only their immediate and in- 

 dispensable attendants, namely, a few compelled to remain 

 within the nurseries, and the royal body-guard, a little Ama- 

 zonian band, as brave and as much devoted to Fuscan royalty, 

 as were the "red-granite Swiss" to the unhappy majesty of 

 France. 



Now comes the tug of war. The defenders are assembled 

 in front of their city, fighting for their queen, their lives, and 

 the liberty of their infant population. The assailants, their 

 main body having now come up, are fighting for glory and for 



