Definition of "bespeared"

The keeping eunuchs were at back, solemn in stately rows, bespeared and bescimitared, the Danish, Irish, and German of their countenances lost in the daub which made them swart.

1905, Samuel Major Gardenhire, The Silence of Mrs. Harrold - Page 277

My definition of war will stand on my definition of militarism, and my definition of militarism goes back thru the Roman milites, helmeted and bespeared, massed in legions or formed in testudines, back to the slopes of Kabulstan and the plains of the Jumna and the Ganges, […]

1915, Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the […] Annual Meeting, volume 53