There entered first sixty horsemen, blacker than Satan. Their flattened noses, their huge ears decorated with large ear-rings, their thick lips, were for the spectators so many objects of ridicule. Their bare arms were loaded with bracelets from wrist to shoulder; their heads were protected by light casques, around which were wound turbans of white silk. All were clad in the richest stuffs, and vied with one another in appearance. Some were loudly beating kettle-drums; others were blowing with distended cheeks horns of extraordinary shape; others, again, were ringing hand-bells or striking triangles of steel; while from time to time there resounded the deep bellowing of ten bronze gongs, whose vibrations so vehemently shook the spectator as even to induce a desire to cough! Immediately after these came a hundred knights, of noble aspect, clad in triple mail, so flexible and light that a girl of fifteen might wear it with ease, and yet so stout that it was proof against the thrust of a Saracen lance; as for the thrust of a French lance, we will see about that by and by. Their faces were protected by Saragossan helmets, and they were armed with the heavy spear of Valence; while their swords’, although light, could cut through or hack away steel armour, so dexterous were they in wielding them. Behind them marched twelve standard-bearers. Here the crescent and the horse-tail of the Moslem took the place of the red cross and the bannerets which led the Christians to combat. Last of all, ten horse-lengths from this vanguard, appeared the envoys of Marsillus, King of Portugal, Castile, Arragon, Leon, and Valence. All who beheld them trembled, and ridicule gave place to alarm. [Illustration: 044] He was twelve cubits in height, and his face measured three feet across, his nose being nine inches long. His arms and legs were six feet long; his fingers were six inches and two lines. His inordinately large mouth was armed with sharp-pointed yellow tusks, and seemed less like human jaws than the portcullis of some rude stronghold. He was descended from Goliath, and assumed the title of Governor of Jerusalem. He had the strength of thirty men, and his mace was made of the trunk of an oak three hundred years old.* This monster was attired in the hides of strange wild beasts, slain by himself on the peaks of Atlas, whither no other mortal had been able to penetrate. His horse was without a match in the world, for it was up to his enormous weight. It gave a loud neigh on entering the list, and so alarmed all the other steeds that they reared, and in some instances unseated their riders--a disaster at which the Saracens burst into roars of laughter. Himiltrude, in her terror, crossed herself, convinced that the new-comers would vanish in smoke before she could say “Amen!” But the Pagans continued to advance in good order. [Illustration: 046] “Hell must surely have gaped to-day!” said Mita.