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Updated: June 4, 2025
There was a wild scene of confusion when they realised what was happening, tomtoms beating, trumpets sounding, and men rushing together, but the compact body of matchlockmen with their matches lighted, and troopers with drawn swords, looked so formidable that beyond firing a stray shot or two, the army made no opposition to their progress.
For myself, I used to stand outside the gate-way, looking down on the broad, winding river and on the twinkling lights of the great city. The beating of drums, the rattle of tomtoms, and the yells and howls of the rebels, drunk with opium and with bang, were enough to remind us all night of our dangerous neighbors across the stream.
"Then why does he look like that, breathe like that?" She indicated the Diviner, who was trembling where he crouched, and breathing heavily, and always sweating like one in agony. "There is more," said the Count, slowly. "Tell me." "You stand alone upon the dunes and you look towards the city. He hears the tomtoms beating, and distant cries as if there were a fantasia.
The scorpions, as if mesmerised, remained utterly still, each in its place within its imaginary circle, that had become a cage; and their master bowed to the fetish of the tomtoms, leaped, grinned, and bowed again, undulating his body in a maze of hair. Domini felt as if she, like the scorpions, had been mesmerised.
Someone growled again more fiercely, and this time Domini saw that it was the palest of the ascetic-looking youths. He shook back his long hair, rose to his feet with a bound, and moving into the centre of the court gazed ferociously at his companions. As if in obedience to the glance, two of them stretched their arms backwards, found two tomtoms, and began to beat them loudly and monotonously.
Forty degrees below zero did not trouble the Indians. They stamped till they dropped, and sang till their voices vanished, and beat the tomtoms everlastingly. Jones fed the children once each day, against the trapper's advice.
On the left was a large doorway, in which gorgeously-dressed painted women, with gold crowns on their heads, were standing, smoking cigarettes, and laughing with the Arabs; and at the end farthest from the street entrance was a raised platform, on which sat three musicians a wild-looking demon of a man blowing into an instrument with an immense funnel, and two men beating tomtoms.
His long hair fell over his face and back upon his shoulders with a monotonous regularity that imitated the tomtoms, as if he strove to mould his life in accord with the fetish to which he offered adoration. Flecks of foam appeared upon his lips, and the asceticism in his eyes changed to a bestial glare.
It was a melody that seemed to set the soul of Creation dancing before an ark. The tomtoms accompanied it with an irregular but rhythmical roar which Domini thought was like the deep-voiced shouting of squadrons of fighting men. Irena looked wearily at the knives. Her expression had not changed, and Domini was amazed at her indifference. The eyes of everyone in the room were fixed upon her.
Tess asked in a whisper, and without turning her head Yasmini answered: "Would you have the English know that I was hailed as maharanee through the streets? Give them but leave and they would beat the tomtoms, and dance under the trees. These are all friends here."
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