"Tattoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suspicion that the woods were empty and the watchers gone. The place was as deserted as the bush at Umvelos'. When we reached the summit about sunset we waited anxiously for the sound of drums. It came, as we expected, louder and more menacing than before. Wardlaw stood pinching my arm as the great tattoo swept down the escarpment, and died away in the far mountains beyond the Olifants, Yet it no longer seemed to be a wall of sound, shutting us out from our kindred in the West. A message had pierced the wall. If the blesbok were changing ground, I believed ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... final and most precious reward All beggars, each in his own way Always an incompleteness somewhere, and the shadow Assent to what must be Ax on his shoulder proceeding toward a grindstone Beating the dirge of yesterday or the tattoo of to-morrow Begum, of Bengal, days out from Canton—homeward bound! Best friend I have ever had, but is the best man I have known Brown's Hotel Byron Casanova & Pepys & Saint Simon Cats really owned Stormfield ...
— Widger's Quotations from Albert Bigelow Paine on Mark Twain • David Widger
... dropped off at Milbank, but I kept on, on into the James Valley, arriving at Ordway on the evening of the second day—a clear cloudless evening in early April, with the sun going down red in the west, the prairie chickens calling from the knolls and hammers still sounding in the village, their tattoo denoting the urgent need of roofs ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... that they are either homogeneous, or infinitesimal, or of some other description. Now we place each of these things sometimes in opposition to itself, and sometimes in opposition to each one of the others. For example, we place a custom in 148 opposition to a custom thus: some of the Ethiopians tattoo new-born children, but we do not, and the Persians think it is seemly to have a garment of many colors and reaching to the feet, but we think it not so. The Indians [Greek: tais gynaixi deomosia mignyntai] but most of the ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... grove of such trees the evening effect was a thing to remember for a lifetime. The regimental camps were all alive with diversions of different sorts from the time of the halt at the end of a march till tattoo sounded. Each had its trained pet animals, and the soldiers exhausted their skill and patience in teaching these varied tricks. One regiment had a pair of bull-terrier dogs that played a game which never ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... that cowboys are rather sleepy-headed in the morning and it is a part of the cook's job to get them up. The next I knew, Herman had a tin pan on which he was beating a vigorous tattoo, all the time hollering, "We haf cackle-berries und antelope steak for breakfast." The baby was startled by the noise, so I attended to him and then dressed myself for breakfast. I went down to the little spring to wash my face. The morning was lowering ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... silence, his face went ruminative and then sad. With a sudden indrawing of breath he freed himself from his reverie, and bending over from his saddle patted a buckskin neck in affectionate tattoo. Tawny ears turned backward in appreciative fellowship, but without any break in a plodding dog-trot. Though the rider's aspect might say with the desert that time was nothing, the pony's expressed a logical purpose. Thus the speed of their machine-like progress was entirely regulated by ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... night were coming apace, The tattoo had beat; the tattoo had beat. The noble one sprang from his dark hiding-place, To make his retreat; ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... read the paragraph he glanced quickly at Archie, whose fork was beating a queer tattoo ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... was a curious discoloration in the skin and a long, crooked, cruel scar that ran diagonally across forehead and temple and cheek in a white, jagged seam. This discoloration was of a livid blue, about the tint of a tattoo mark. It made a patch the size of a man's hand, lying across the cheek and the side of the neck. Hiram could not keep his eyes from this mark and the ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... tin roof of the cottage the rain beat a wild tattoo. Within, the silence lengthened. Under the circumstances, Varney considered reserve on the lady's part not unnatural; but a little talk, as he viewed the matter, would tend to ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... in ecstasies. So much so, that she could not wait to beat the tattoo and effect any alterations. But having succeeded, while conversing with her cousins, in devising a stanza in her mind, she promptly inscribed it on the first piece of paper that came to hand. "I have," she remarked, with a precursory ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... raised her head she might have sustained a fractured skull. Her feet left the rock and beat a positive tattoo in the air. A moment more and she had managed to entangle them in the rope and, powerless to help ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... house-door is but a flimsy barricade against a mob, especially if that mob be led by five-and-twenty stout-bodied seaman. We had shut it merely to gain time, and when the cudgels outside began to play tattoo upon its upper panels I looked for no more than a minute's respite ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Roll — N. roll &c v.; drumming &c v.; berloque^, bombination^, rumbling; tattoo, drumroll; dingdong; tantara^; rataplan^; whirr; ratatat, ratatat-tat; rubadub; pitapat; quaver, clutter, charivari^, racket; cuckoo; repetition &c 104; peal of bells, devil's tattoo; reverberation &c 408. [sound of railroad train rolling on rails] clickety-clack. hum, purr. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... arriving from England bringing General William Howe, General Henry Clinton, and General John Burgoyne, with several thousand troops to carry on the war. Every morning Miss Newville heard the drums beating the reveille and in the evening the tattoo. Many officers called at the hospitable home of Honorable Theodore Newville to enjoy the society of his charming daughter, who received them with ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... unscrupulous partisanship by Mr. Hawkins, and the address to the jury by Sir John Coleridge, followed in due course, and then a few family witnesses, including Lady Radcliffe, were heard, who deposed, among many other matters, to the famous tattoo marks on Roger's arm; and, finally, the jury declared that they were satisfied. Then the Claimant's advisers, to avoid the inevitable verdict for their opponents, elected to be non-suit. But, notwithstanding these tactics, Lord Chief-Justice Bovill, under his warrant, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... starless night. Tattoo-beat had long been heard, and Hay's Brigade, weary after a long day's march, rested beneath the dewy boughs of gigantic oaks in a dense forest near the placid Rappahannock. No sound broke the stillness of the night. The troops ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... a simple way," says Cecil, with a melancholy sigh,—dear Molly is so obstinate and old-fashioned; then follows another pause, longer and more decided than the last. Molly, with her back turned to her friend, commences such a dismal tattoo upon the window-pane as would be sufficient to depress any one without further cause. Her friend is ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... Their shadows waved fantastically along the walls as they strode noiselessly in, wild as spirits dancing to the voice of their master Satan, the seductive raeita. At one end of the room sat the musicians, all giant negroes, the scars and tattoo marks on their sweating black faces giving them a villainous look in the wavering light. They were playing the bendir, the tomtom, the Arab flute, as well as the raeita; but the raeita laughed the ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... if the virago heard the request. She was not given to curbing her temper, and leaning back in the chair, her body rigid, she beat a tattoo with her high-heeled shoes and clenched her ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... wheels, and the engine plunged forward. Jawn fingered the lever with a lover's caress. He knew old "eleven," every foot of her, every tube, bolt, and strap. As they cleared the yards, he threw her wider and wider open until she was lunging and lurching madly. The cinders beat a tattoo upon the cab, and Jim Weeks crowded up into the corner. The fireman, a strapping young fellow, threw in great shovels of coal with the regularity of a machine, pausing only to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand as the heat grew intense. When he opened the furnace ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... the awful sense Of the street in its past unmacadamized tense, As the wild horse overran it,— His four heels making the clatter of six, Like a Devil's tattoo, play'd with iron sticks On a kettle-drum ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... taught some other trade. Giustino was seldom punished. On the contrary, the Director was so enamoured of his progress and blue eyes that he entered him as a fox long before the regular three years' course was up, and offered to tattoo the symbol of proficiency, a cross, on the back ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the South-Sea islanders tattoo themselves. In other words, they prick a multitude of little holes in their skins, and rub into these some colouring matter, which, when thoroughly fixed, cannot again be washed out. The ornamental devices with which they thus, more ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... screamed back Mrs. Dexter, though she was doing nothing besides beating a feeble tattoo with her soft fists against the panels of the door ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... replied the crack first-baseman, gloomily. He rose and went to the window, where he stood beating a tattoo. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... having been rendered useless by a cursed captain, named M. Minutoli, who, when on guard, always shut the gate he had charge of an hour before the usual time. I was returning home with my two companions, and had got within half a league of the city, when I heard them beat the tattoo; I redouble my pace, I run with my utmost speed, I approach the bridge, see the soldiers already at their posts, I call out to them in a suffocated voice—it is too late; I am twenty paces from the guard, the first bridge is already drawn up, and ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... to the tavern the tragedy was already concluded; and, being a feeble one in itself and indifferently performed, it left so much the better chance for the Story-Teller. The bar was thronged with customers, the toddy-stick keeping a continual tattoo; while in the hall there was a broad, deep, buzzing sound, with an occasional peal of impatient thunder,—all symptoms of all overflowing house and an eager audience. I drank a glass of wine-and-water, and stood at the side scene conversing with a young person of doubtful ...
— Passages From a Relinquised Work (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... white strangers, who must have seemed to them a different race of beings; nor was their wonder at all abated when Miago threw open his shirt, and showed them his breast curiously scarred after their fashion—for this custom of cutting stripes upon the body, as other savages tattoo it, by way of ornament, seems universally to prevail throughout Australia—as a convincing evidence that he, though now the associate of the white man, belonged to the same country as themselves. When Miago ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... their vessels along the Slave Coast. And in order to prevent any Kruboy being carried off as a slave by mistake, which would have prejudiced these useful allies, the slavers persuaded them always to tattoo a band of basket-work pattern down their foreheads and out on to the tip of their broad noses: this is the most extensive bit of real tattoo that I know of in West Africa, and the Kruboys still keep the fashion. Their next tutors were the traders, who have taught and still ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... chest. Beyond the baggageman he saw through the open door, as on a moving-picture screen, sunlit fields and sunlit woods whirling past. He began to bark at them eagerly, his eyes hungry, his tail beating against the taut chain an excited tattoo. The baggageman turned ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... struck me on the back of the head, partially stunning me and knocking me to the deck. My first thought was that something had carried away aloft; but even as I went down, and before I struck the deck, I heard the devil's own tattoo of rifles from the boats, and twisting sidewise, I caught a glimpse of the sailor who was standing guard. Two big niggers were holding his arms, and a third nigger from behind was braining him ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... the storm would come. The mare turned out of the barnyard and ploughed through a drift and struck hard-packed road. Her hoofs beat a swift tattoo; our runners sang beneath us. We dropped to the little bridge and across and began the mile-long climb to the top of Rayborn Hill. The road from Hazen's house to town is compounded ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... a profound courtesy, and, while her fingers beat a tattoo on the book she held, she watched him with a peculiar sparkle in her eyes, which he had already learned to understand was a beacon flame kindled by intense displeasure. Dr. Grey seated himself, and, taking off ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the fireplace, his hands deep in his pockets, where his guest could see his long fingers beat a tattoo on his thighs, Newton Winch dangled and swung himself, and threw back his head and laughed. "Well, I must say you take it amazingly!—all the more that to see you again this way is to feel that if, all along, there was a man whose delicacy and confidence ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... wasn't very long before some one else came along and interrupted my work. This was a huge, big, burly man with a red beard and tattoo-marks all over his arms. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, spat twice on to ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... Greek's wrist, however, and he had to fight for another hold now—in the dark. Presently he captured it, twisted the arm in the terrible hammer-lock, and broke it; then, while the Greek lay writhing in agony, Mr. O'Leary leaped to his feet and commenced to play with his awful boots a devil's tattoo on that portion of his enemy's superstructure so frequently alluded to in pugilistic circles as "the slats." After five or six kicks, however, he paused, due to a difficulty in breathing; so he struck a match and surveyed the ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... stood with his back to the tea-table. He seemed to have forgotten the woman who sat so rigid behind him. His fingers drummed a careless tattoo upon the table-edge. He was unquestionably master of the situation, and that without much ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... night, above the whistling wind, I heard the welcome rain,— A fusillade upon the roof, A tattoo on the pane: The keyhole piped; the chimney-top A warlike trumpet blew; Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife, ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... lost Home Rule by allowing themselves to be stampeded. Their English friends, the enemy, playing upon their prejudices, they became drunk with hate, and then their shillalahs resounded a tattoo upon the head of their leader. Nations and people who turn upon their best friends are too common ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... in the pine-scented shipyard, amid the tattoo of the mallets; Or he leaned on the rail of the bridge, letting his thoughts flow with the whispering river; He hearkened also to ancient tales, and made them ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... sentenced to receive military punishment, one of the drummers refused to inflict it, saying it was not his duty. "Not your duty, Sirrah!" said the adjutant, "what do you mean?" "I know very well," replied Tattoo, "that it is not my duty; I was present at the court martial, and heard the colonel say he was to receive corporal punishment. I am no corporal, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... outstanding and flattened ears; narrow and dome-shaped palate; irregularly placed teeth; prominent parietal bones; two symmetrical depressions on the occiput; congenital flat-footedness; and a sullen facial expression. His arms were covered with tattoo marks. Sense of pain somewhat diminished. Sympathetic reactions could not be elicited. Wassermann reaction with blood ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... more oppressive. The air was nauseous with the dank mucky odour that cooked out of the mangrove swamp. Rowelled by the squeaky music to recollection of old-world ports and places, Borckman lay on his face on the hot planking, beat a tattoo with his naked toes, and gutturally muttered an unending monologue of curses. But Van Horn, with Jerry panting under his hand, placidly and philosophically continued to smoke, lighting a fresh cigar ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... queen standing in a bower of lances, the rescued princess gracefully fainting in her arms, and the vanquished demon scowling fiercely under her foot, while four-and-twenty dishevelled damsels sang a song of exultation, to the barbaric music of a tattoo ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... necessarily brutal in its haste, for some indication of identity. They examined the men's pockets, their bloodstained clothes, the machine, the framework. They turned the bodies over and flung them aside. There was not a tattoo mark. . . . Everything was elaborately free of any ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... the only people in the hills who tattoo are certain tribes of the Bhoi country which are really Mikir. These tattoo females on the forehead when they attain the age of puberty, a straight horizontal line being drawn from the parting of the hair down the forehead ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... fell, his choicest tool a flake of stone; His best of orn'aments tattoo'd skin and holes to ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... being fixed so I could take my own time if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my back to save me and set me free when the close-fit come, here was nothing in the world betwixt me and sudden death but just them tattoo-marks. If they didn't ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... still a wonderfully young body, muscular, without any fat. His skin was smooth and clear. It might have been the body of a man of twenty-eight, except that there were, perhaps, too many blue scars, like tattoo-marks, where the coal-dust remained under the skin, and that his chest was too hairy. But he put his hand on his side ruefully. It was his fixed belief that, because he did not get fat, he was as thin ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... table on which the paper was symmetrically arranged in a stationery rack, and quickly seating herself, she laid her muff down, half-raised her little veil, and beat a tattoo with her tiny hand on the little black leather blotter before her, then taking off her gloves, she took at random some sheets of paper and some envelopes bearing the address of the establishment on the corners. As she looked around for a pen, Marianne could not refrain from smiling, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... once they glimpsed a black, shiny something like a monstrous leech rolling up and down as it travelled in the stream. Quonab whispered, "Otter," and made ready his gun, but it dived and showed itself no more. At one of the camps they were awakened by an extraordinary tattoo in the middle of the night—a harsh rattle close by their heads; and they got up to find that a porcupine was rattling his teeth on the frying-pan in an effort to increase the amount of salt that he could taste on it. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... who knows her. You do, don't you, Mike?" added Donald, and the dog beat a tattoo on the rug with his ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... in the quick tattoo which Mr. Gryce's fingers were drumming out on the table-top. It was infinitesimal in length, but it gave ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... is in working their wells, for which they lack patience. Their women, whom they do not confine, will, it is said, do more field-work than the men; indeed, one often finds women at work in the crops when the men are lying down. Like the women of low Hindu castes they tattoo their bodies, a practice disapproved by Musalmans in general. Abul Fazl writes that the Meos were in his time famous runners, and one thousand of them were employed by Akbar as carriers of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Hotel has invented an ingenious system of calling sleepy guests. The other night a man left instructions that he wished to be called early. Next morning he was disturbed by a loud tattoo upon the door. "Well?" he demanded sharply. "I've got a message for you, sir." Yawning until he strained his face, the guest jumped out of bed and unlocked the door. The bellboy handed him an envelope ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... front of the house flung slim black shadows across the low adobe buildings and splashed the tip of their shade in the dust-cloud that filled with haze the corral a hundred yards away. Sing Pete stepped from the door and beat a tattoo on the iron triangle suspended by a piece of wire from the lowest branch of a mesquit tree at the corner of the house, announcing by the metallic clamor that the work of the day was finished and supper was ready and waiting. Parker swung back the heavy gate at the corral entrance and the ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... repeated her remark, emphasizing with a little tattoo of her teaspoon on the Chippendale tea-tray before her. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were all "raw"; and my duty, with others, consisted in "licking them into shape". It was drill, drill, from morning till night; and, by early tattoo, I was always glad to crawl into my tent and go to sleep—such sleep as a man can get among scorpions, lizards, and soldier-crabs; for the little islet seemed to have within its boundaries a specimen of every reptile that came safely ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... caught. In fact he was caught, and the reason for it was that Bunny was a little too big to fit in the stage trough—that is his shoulders were too large. But his legs and feet were free, and with his shoes he was drumming a tattoo on the inside of the tin trough, which was somewhat ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... nodding, "only—hurry, Martin!" By the time the old groom had returned with the scarlet hunting-frock and helped Barnabas into it, "The Terror" was led out from his box, and immediately began to snort and rear and beat a ringing tattoo with his great, round hoofs to a chorus of chirruping and whoa-ing from ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... Asiatic progenitors. The labrets of the men are offset by the long pendant earrings of the women, which are made from H.B. Co. beads and shells brought by Alaska Indians from the Pacific, It is only the women who here tattoo their faces, the three long stripes extending from lower lip to the chin. The men crop their hair in the style of the tonsure of the monk. Neither man nor woman provides any head covering except the hood of ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... walls in the alcoves stood two light iron bedsteads, with a single mattress on each, carefully folded back during the day, and made up only after tattoo. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... dark, cold, rainy night in November. The wind whistled about the house, the rain beat a tattoo against the window-panes and flooded the sills. The big base-burner, filled with anthracite coal, was illuminating the room through its mica windows, on all sides, and dispensing a warmth that smiled at the storm ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... filled her pail and was returning in the track selected by the buffalo. Too terrified to move, she watched, with white face and parted lips, the maddened animal sweep toward her, head down and tail up, its hoofs beating a thunderous tattoo on the plain. ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... The Clown, making mirth for all the town, With his lips curved ever upward and his eyebrows ever down, And his chief attention paid to the little mule that played A tattoo on the dashboard with ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... the lady, and felt for my hat, too, Improvised on the crown of the latter a tattoo, In lieu of expressing the feelings which lay Quite too deep for words, as Wordsworth would say; Then, without going through the form of a bow, Found myself in the entry—I hardly know how, On doorstep and sidewalk, past lamp-post and square, At home and upstairs, in my ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... came out of the darkness and at that instant I made a discovery. Leith was not alone. Keeping time with the clatter of the shoes was a softer tattoo that told me that a barefooted runner was racing beside the man we ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... somewhat for my taste; and we played golf at Mr. Lispenard's, which presently lost all charm for me, as Elsin Grey remained at the pavilion and touched no club, neither wood nor iron, save to beat the devil's tattoo upon the grass and smile into the bold ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... with adenoids rocks on her hams. A torrent of song strains at her throat, gurgles, rushes, gouges her blocked pipes. Her feet beat a wild tattoo— head flung back and pelvis lifting to the white body of the sun. Mates now, these ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... No. 2. While others, as in No. 3, weave their own hair on pieces of hide into the form of buffalo horns; or, as in No. 4, make a single horn in front. The features given are frequently met with, but they are by no means universal. Many tattoo their bodies by inserting some black substance beneath the skin, which leaves an elevated cicatrix about half an inch long: these are made in the form of stars, and other ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... effect of lowering his spirits. It might well have been the abode of monsters or demons in a child's wonder tale, creatures that only dared to come out under cover of darkness. He groped for the bell-handle, or knocker, and finding neither, he raised his stick and beat a loud tattoo on the door. The sound echoed away in an empty space on the other side and the wind moaned past him between the pillars as if startled at his audacity. But there was no sound of approaching footsteps and no one came to open the door. Again he ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... had risen in the night, the clamor of voices died away. A single shout came up the river. Carrigan thought he heard a low rumble of laughter. A tin pan banged against another. A dog howled. The flat of an oar played a tattoo for a moment on the bottom of a boat. Then one last yell from a single throat—and the night ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... roof of little more height or importance than those that clustered round it. The men were in striped brown gandourahs of camel's hair; the lovely unveiled women were wrapped in woollen foutahs dyed red or yellow, blue or purple, and from their little ears heavy rings dangled. The blue tattoo marks on their brown cheeks and foreheads, which in forgotten times had been Christian crosses, gave great value to their enormous, kohl-encircled eyes; and their teeth were very white as they smiled boldly, yet proudly, at Stephen ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Tom Clary, "I belave we can do bist by oursilves. Me afthernoon's lave ixpires at tattoo, but if, as me shuparior officers, ye'll allow me to be out of camp a bit longer, I think ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... suspicions had fallen on the guilty party. Here was a jealous woman who evidently knew a good deal. Putting two and two together is the very essence of scientific thought and Dr. Starr was no beginner. Sophy's foot was beating a rapid tattoo on the floor. On her face the color kept ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... the provinces of Camarines in this island of Luzon, and those of Leyte, Samar, Panay, and other neighborhoods, came, I have heard, from the districts of Macasar, where it is said that Indians live who make designs on and tattoo the body, in the manner of our Pintados. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, in the relation which he wrote of the discovery of the Salomon Islands in 1595, says that an island called Madalena was found in ten degrees north latitude, at a distance from Piru of one thousand eight ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... eyebrows and eyelids are dyed black while the children are very young, and they frequently paint themselves with dark-blue streaks of a finger's breadth over the eyebrows, and with spots on the forehead. The adult women tattoo their breasts, foreheads, noses, or temples with red, white, or yellow colours, according as they are particularly attached to one or the other deity. Many wear amulets or miniatures hung round their necks, so that I at first thought they were Catholics, and ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... running on third speed, and the motor was taking about all the gasolene it could use. She adjusted the spark to give the best service, and now, as an additional means of inducing speed, she cut out the muffler. The explosions of the motor played a tattoo on the dusty road. ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... perpetual tattoo to no purpose. The talking and the interruptions from all quarters go on with the utmost license. Everyone esteems himself as good as his neighbor, and puts in his oar, apparently as often for love of riot and confusion as for anything else.... The Speaker orders a member whom he has discovered ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... playing the devil's tattoo with his pencil, scowling somewhat nervously. "Did you want ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Powers, would be ensconced at the home of Mrs. Fogel, his mother. Mollie Bent was there, and girl like, was delighted over the romance being enacted under that roof. The heart of the Indian maid was beating a happy tattoo under her civilian dress. ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... grandmother to continue her sententious advice, while she herself sat tapping her feet on the floor, and performing the most rapid variations of that air which is called the Devil's Tattoo, burst out, at length, to the elder lady's surprise, with an outbreak of indignation, a flushing face, and a voice ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and knocked sharply. There was no response, and he repeated the summons, but again without effect. Thereupon, with a muttered exclamation, he grasped the knocker a third time and executed a veritable tattoo upon the door. When this had proceeded for about half ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... out of the silence, sounding so good through the night's mystery, no hurry, but firm and faithful, floating along, rising, falling leisurely, with here and there a long-drawn note; the bugle, well play'd, sounding tattoo, in one of the army hospitals near here, where the wounded (some of them personally so dear to me,) are lying in their cots, and many a sick boy come down to the war from Illinois, Michigan, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... of sharp teeth with which the skin is punctured. Into these punctures a preparation made from the kernel of the candle-nut, mixed with cocoa-nut oil, is rubbed, and the mark thus made is indelible. The operation is performed by a class of men whose profession it is, and they tattoo as much at a time as the person on whom they are operating can bear; which is not much, the pain and inflammation caused by tattooing being very great, sometimes causing death. Some of the chiefs were tattooed with an ornamental stripe down the legs, which gave them the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... reveille, is present also at retreat, yea, even at tattoo, and retireth, apparently, ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... the almost boundless influence of the imitation of one man by another in the evolution of civilisation. Imitation is one of the chief spurs to action. Imitation begets custom, custom begets sanctity. At first all custom is sacred. To the savage it is as much a religious duty to tattoo himself as to sacrifice to his gods. But certain customs naturally survive, because they are really useful; they actually have good effects, and so need no social sanction. Others are really useless; but man is too conservative and imitative ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... tyrannically solicitous father; but to see such love thrown before a marble-faced man, whose expression never changed except when speaking of his imbecile machines! "How can he! How can he!" muttered Jack, riding through the woods. His face was sombre, almost stern; and always he beat the devil's tattoo on his boot with the ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... hostler when the vehicle would be wanted. Not a sign of impatience escaped him until the time drew near for the departure of the early coach. Then the captain's curly lips began to twitch with anxiety, and the captain's restless fingers beat the devil's tattoo unremittingly ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... and took his. He was terrifically conscious of the warm smoothness of her fingers playing a soft tattoo on the back of his hand, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... we had gone to bed last night,—we in the tent, the Doctor and Pilgrim under the fly, which serves as a porch roof,—the heavenly floodgates lifted; the rain, coming in sheets, beat a fierce tattoo on the tightly-stretched canvas, and visions of a sudden rise in the fickle river were uppermost in our dreams. Everything about us was sopping at daybreak; but the sun rose clear and warm from a bed of eastern clouds, and the midnight gale had ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... Meanwhile the judge, after some apology, lit his pipe and told long stories of the storms of early days and of odd freaks of the wind. He talked on calmly, the picture of repose, and blew rings above his head, but Helen saw that one of his big slippers beat an unceasing little tattoo on the carpet. She sat with fixed eyes, in silence, holding Minnie's hand tightly; and her face was colorless, and grew whiter as the slow hours ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... said to her, 'since I find it difficult to resist you. But if I yield to the mysterious reality you have assumed I will become too grotesque for my vanity to tolerate. I will remain aware while possessing you that my penis is beating a ludicrous tattoo on a sofa cushion. I choose rather to emulate the pride of St. Anthony, who shrewdly refused to play the whoremonger ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... standing out like living cords. In a corner of the cage cowered the powerful creature, its broad, snake-like head thrust forward, its tiny golden eyes fixed before it, a curious snarl—like a grin—now and then contorted the immobility of its powerful jaws. The sinewy tail beat a restless tattoo on the floor ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... is different—sonorous, tense, elastic; On it you might a tattoo beat, with fingers or with a stick. There's costiveness and atrophy, with features Hippocratic; When these appear, there's much to fear, all safety is erratic. Although a cordial laxative, mix'd up with some carminative, Might be prescribed, with morphia, or hops, to keep the man alive; Take care ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... expression to her, and I am a charming 'rogue', and I am entertained on the topic she assumes to be principally interesting me. I must avoid her. The thought of her leaves me no choice. She is clever. She could tattoo me with epigrams." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Kathleen, who had lifted the big glass jar into the lantern light and was trying to get a glimpse of the exquisite moth, whose wings of olive green, rose, and bronze velvet were already beating a hazy death tattoo ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... public crier had finished his tattoo he called forth in a jerky voice, pausing in ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Lake as she looked out on her shadowy garden, and tapped a little feverish tattoo with her finger on the window pane; and she meditated a great while, trying to bring back distinctly her recollection of Lady Constance, and also vaguely conjecturing who had arranged the marriage, and how it had ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and he beat a tattoo on the sides of the horse with his feet. But as Dick had on soft slippers, he did not hurt the White Rocking Horse in the least, nor did he chip off any paint. "Here I go! Here I go!" shouted Dick. ...
— The Story of a White Rocking Horse • Laura Lee Hope
... only to stay on his feet to be home safe. But when was Milt going to let him go? Milt had turned in a masterpiece of defensive fighting. The left had deadly accuracy and now the openings were truck-sized as Monroe had come to ignore the light tattoo of the ...
— Vital Ingredient • Gerald Vance
... ears still whin I felt in the bones of me that Dinah was comin', an' I heard a shout, an' thin I saw a horse an' a tattoo latherin' down the road, hell to shplit, under women. I knew - I knew! Wan was the Tyrone Colonel's wife - ould Beeker's lady - her gray hair flyin' an' her fat round carkiss rowlin' in the saddle, ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... neither pity nor mercy in the heart of a setter when he is on the scent of a rabbit, alive or dead—but, Tattine, don't forget they have their good sides, Doctor and Betsy; just think how fond they are of you and me. Why, the very sight of us always makes them beat a tattoo ...
— Tattine • Ruth Ogden
... four slim, young top riders of the ranch force, chaparajos and sombreros being much in evidence. They gave the usual stunts in the typical Western way on a track tramped as hard as asphalt, the tattoo of hoofs making the hard earth ring in the soundless atmosphere. Their feats, singly and together, were marvelous, but there was lacking to the onlookers the charm of novelty, as they had long been accustomed to these and similar exhibitions ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... went away ten year ago and left Joab to run the store (and a proper mess he made of things!) I found a feller down in the South End of Boston and he fixed me up with this tattoo work for twenty-five dollars. Course, I didn't dare show it none here—kep' my sleeves down an' my throat-latch buttoned all ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... the little outrigger canoe to the dancing pole. Kohokumu caught the line that was fast to the butt of the pole and under-handed it in until a two-foot ukikiki, battling fiercely to the end, flashed its wet silver in the sun and began beating a tattoo on the inside bottom of the canoe. Kohokumu picked up a squirming, slimy squid, with his teeth bit a chunk of live bait out of it, attached the bait to the hook, and dropped line and sinker overside. The ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... knew I should see you again," said the girl as though she had not heard Armitage's banality. "I know now why I spoke to you on the General and why I wrote you that note in church." Her slipper beat an impatient tattoo on the door. "But why," she began, "why are you willing to enter service as a physical instructor, or motor car driver? I ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... had been a cue, the sounds again burst forth—no longer muffled nor faint. They roared; they seemed to pelt through air and drop upon us; they beat about our ears with thunderous tattoo like covered caverns drummed upon by Titans ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... flying up the hill road, beating a tattoo of new life upon the soft, breathing air of ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... devil's tattoo for some moments, and then exclaimed, "You may say what you will, but the present system of society is radically wrong:—whatever ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... shrewd enough to wait. Joe mused an appreciable time, beating his tattoo on the table. "Yes," he finally said, "they've got to give the minority something, and I know one of the members who can get what I want. He's owing me a little favor—see? I needn't figure in the deal at all, and Burroughs will be mad as thunder." Again he thrummed, decisively this ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... the arm that rested across her forehead, realized how her last night's breach of authority had impressed each one of them. And secretly rejoicing at her triumph, she kept up a brisk tattoo. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... dousing us with water, but the shells were not falling on board now. The two German destroyers were sweeping down on the helpless boat ahead, the missiles from their light guns playing a regular tattoo on her. It was an even chance we wouldn't find ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... tattoo sounded, but as before it produced no results. So Elmer opened the door, which he saw had been fashioned in the rudest way from boards, ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... maintenance, decoration, and furnishing; of the assignment of rooms, the supply of food, the heating, lights, silver, and livery. He commanded the detachments of the Imperial Guard on duty in the Imperial palaces. He gave orders to beat the reveill and the tattoo, to open and shut the palace gates. When the Emperor was with the army, or travelling, he had to find him quarters. In 1805 the Grand Marshal's budget amounted to 2,338,167 francs. In 1806 it reached the sum of 2,770,841 francs. There were four tables in the palace,—that ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... spot where they have committed a crime, notwithstanding the fact that they have taken a hundred precautions to avoid detection. This same recklessness prompts them, when the danger is scarcely past, to make verses or pictures of their exploits or to tattoo them upon their persons, ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... The "Lora Tattoo," or the Time of Tattooing, will be long remembered. An enthusiastic sitter celebrated the event in verse. Several lines were repeated to us by Hardy, some of which, in a sort of colloquial chant he translated ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... want me to tell you about it? It belongs to the man that takes care of our furnace; he's got a peach of a tattoo mark on his arm. My mother told me I had to wear a sweater so I grabbed that as I went through the back hall. I always go out through the kitchen, do ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... vosto. tailor : tajloro. talent : talento. talk : interparolad'i, -o; konversacio. tallow : sebo. talon : ungego. tame : dresi; malsovagxa. tan : tan'i, -ilo. tankard : pokalo. tap : krano; frapeti. tape : katunrubando. tar : gudr'o, -umi. tart : torto; acida. task : tasko. taste : gust'o, -umi. tattoo : tatui. tax : imposto. tea : teo. teach : instrui, lernigi. tear : sxiri. tear : larmo. tease : inciteti. tedious : teda, enuiga. tell : rakonti, diri. temper : humoro, karaktero. temperate : sobra, modera. temperature : temperaturo. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... Quarters sounded at 8:45 and "Tattoo" at 9:00. It was now time to go. Cordially each boy thanked our gracious hosts. "And should I live a thousand years I'll ne'er forget." Reverently, gallantly, devotedly, each said bon jour to darling Annette. To each she represented womanhood—beautiful, modest, lovable. ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... the ridge. Slowly Overland raised his right hand. Then the old fighting soul of Jack Summers, sheriff of Abilene, rebelled. "No! Dam' if I'll ambush any white man." And he leaped to his feet. "Overland Limited!" he shouted, and with his battle-cry came the quick tattoo of shots. The horseman wavered, doubled up, and ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... in the most grotesque patterns. When you look at them closely the invention displayed is truly remarkable; but at a distance they give a dingy, dusky appearance to the men, as if they were daubed with an inky sponge. Nature having denied them beards, they tattoo curly locks along their faces, always bordered by a vandyke fringe, which must task their utmost ingenuity. Tanee, who has followed us with some of his warriors, is the very exquisite of a Kenowit. He is made like a Hercules, and is proud of showing his strength ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... stupid guy, So, lest he sleep too late, He placed a tattoo clock near by To waken him ...
— The Rocket Book • Peter Newell
... says Harry, beating a tattoo on his own white teeth. "I didn't know it when I asked her. I swear I didn't know it. Oh, it's horrible—it's horrible! and it has caused me nights of agony, Sampson. My dear old grandfather had a set a Frenchman at Charleston made them for him, and we used to look at 'em grinning in a tumbler, and ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the man also scratch his though he takes much more pains over his hair, combing and smoothing it in order to divide it well in front and display the tattoo which distinguishes ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... up to the post with its hospitable officers, and I was one who strolled up to "the store" after dark. There we found the major, and Captain Frazer, and Captain Jennings, and most of the youngsters, but Baker was absent. Of course the talk soon drifted to and settled on "Starlight Ranch," and by tattoo most of the garrison crowd were talking like so many Prussians, all at top-voice and all at once. Every man seemed to have some theory of his own with regard to the peculiar conduct of Mr. Burnham, but no one dissented from the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... conversationalists, but we are poor listeners as well. We are too impatient to listen. Instead of being attentive and eager to drink in the story or the information, we have not enough respect for the talker to keep quiet. We look about impatiently, perhaps snap our watch, play a tattoo with our fingers on a chair or a table, hitch about as if we were bored and were anxious to get away, and interrupt the speaker before he reaches his conclusion. In fact, we are such an impatient people that we have no time for anything excepting to push ahead, to elbow our way through ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... name of Ina-Esagil-lilbur";(442) and another "on whose left hand was written the name of Meskitu."(443) These were the names of the owners, not of the slaves themselves. This renders it probable that the branding and the like was always an incised mark, a species of tattoo, which of course was indelible. That the same person who tattooed men should brand animals, or even shear them, is not an insuperable objection. But there is no reason to suppose that the brander ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... pity, from love back to happiness, Sanders never withdrew his gaze. His bead-like eyes followed the artist; he saw each individual finger rise and fall, and the bow bound over the finger-board, always avoiding, never coming in contact with the middle string. Suddenly the old man beat a tattoo on his cranium and closed his eyes, apparently deep ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... till they heard upon the road the rhythmic foot-beats of horses, and the rattle of some farmer's wagon rumbling homeward from the village. Then together they screamed for help. But the hoofs went on beating their tattoo till the sound grew faint, and the rattle of the wagon died in the distance. Again and again the sound which told of human nearness woke hope in their hearts only to ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... and the soldier's drill, And the tattoo's nightly sound; We shall hear no more, with a joyous thrill, Peace, peace, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... of a gown that lay in an iridescent avalanche of sequins about her feet, her foot, tilted to an unbelievable hypothenuse off a cloth-of-silver heel, beat a small and twinkling tattoo, her fingers tattooing, too, along ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... now, however, and hardly to be identified with the sleek, glib fellow who had interviewed Kirkwood in the afternoon. His flabby cheeks were ashen and trembling, and upon the back of his chair the fat white fingers were drumming incessantly an inaudible tattoo ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... off to right a steady tattoo like the rapid beat of many small drums. A quiver ran through the lads who were now gathering in the wood and at its edge. But Dick knew that the fire was distant. The other wing had opened the battle, and it might be a long time before ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... knowing what this irritability meant, and we sat in silence gazing into the glowing ashes. His fingers beat a nervous tattoo against the chair and presently, with some mumbled words, he rose and moved towards the door. Now I knew the fight was on, the fight with the Demon, drink, that was drawing him away from me. I followed him into ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... but it ain't. He told me the old monks that used to carve things—no matter what they carved you could always find a cross, or something like a cross in it. 'Cause they think that way, see? The same as sailors always tattoo fishes and ships and things on their arms. He said some places in the Black Forest the toymakers are French peasants and you can always tell if a fancy thing is carved by them on account of the shape of the fleur-de-lis. It ain't that ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... glass, received no attention, and commenced to beat a tattoo. The window was snatched open, and the fat clerk, very red, thrust ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... strode to the further corner of the room and sat down at as great a distance from Vandeman as its dimensions would permit. He turned his face to the small window there, and through all that Vandeman said, kept up a steady, maddening tattoo with his fingernails ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... chandelier; there was a staccato rattle of horseshoes in the stable yard, and the great gates were opening as we skimmed past in the nick of time. In another minute we were skulking in the shadow of the kitchen-garden wall while the high-road rang with the dying tattoo of galloping hoofs. ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... on his pillows, the hectic passed from either gaunt and sallow cheek, leaving the red and blue tattoo marks visible in most ghastly distinctness, while the sweat poured in drops down ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... where nearly all the officers of the garrison were assembled, listening to Sully's stories. Lieutenant Derby, "Squibob," was one of the number, as also Fred Steele, "Neighbor" Jones, and others, when, just after "tattoo," the orderly-sergeants came to report the result of "tattoo" roll-call; one reported five men absent, another eight, and so on, until it became certain that twenty-eight men had deserted; and they were so ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... saw that their largest trunk had been turned over on its side to make a convenient card-table. The others accommodated the players and loungers whose spurred heels beat a tattoo upon ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... behind, but women who have already had a child wear two in front, one over the other. A similar remark applies to tattooing and kindred ornamentations of the body and its members. Among the women of the Bajansi on the middle Congo, for example, a certain form of tattoo indicated that the woman had borne a child ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... to beat a tattoo on the floor: "There is not a soul in the house but you can do the simplest thing. Eyes and no eyes! Fingers and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... manger." A chicken, with legs as blue as a Highlander's in winter, for my dinner; and the hours that all Christian mankind were devoting to pleasant intercourse, and agreeable chit-chat, spent in beating that dead-march to time, "the Devil's Tattoo," upon my ricketty table, and forming, between whiles, sundry valorous resolutions to reform my life, and "eschew sack and ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... extends over considerable space the tattoo marks are smaller, and are arranged in rows or continuous lines. Such marks may be found upon some individuals to run outward over either or both cheeks from the alae of the nose to a point near the lobe of the ear, clearly indicating ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... heard it they reluctantly went, too. There was a decided resemblance in the build of the dead man to Wyck, but the features were too bruised for them to be certain. However, Joe swore positively to the tattoo on the arm, and that settled the matter, and the corpse was buried as that of Villiers Wyckliffe, a young Englishman out to gain ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... delighted the pair more than to borrow a boat off my father and pull out to the rocks where the Primrose and the Despatch had struck and sunk; and on still days 'twas pretty to hear them out there off the Manacles, the drummer playing his tattoo—for they always took their music with them—and the trumpeter practising calls, and making his trumpet speak like an angel. But if the weather turned roughish, they'd be walking together and talking; leastwise, the youngster listened ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... darkness and listened—peered till Henri's bloodshot eyes positively ached, until tears of weakness dribbled down his face and splashed on to the pavement. As for his head, it throbbed as if a giant hammer were within it, and some demon were rattling the interior of his skull and were dancing a tattoo upon his ear-drums. ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Meanwhile the tattoo had sounded in the village square. The people had returned from their work. The herd lowed as in clouds of golden dust it crowded at the village gate. The girls and the women hurried through the streets and yards, turning in their cattle. The sun had quite hidden itself behind the distant ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... fireman, greaser, tinsmith, copper-smelter, and now, endlich, enfin, at last, a donkeyman. His frame is gigantic, his strength prodigious. On his chest is a horrific picture of the Crucifixion in red, blue, and green tattoo. Between the Christ and the starboard thief is a great triangular scar of smooth, shiny skin. One of his colossal knees is livid with scars. He tells me the story like this, keeping time with the click of ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... ringing elicited no response. The brilliant state of the door-brass afforded evidence of the fact that Ah Tsong had arisen, even if the other members of the household were still sleeping, and Harley, growing irritable, executed a loud tattoo upon the knocker. This had its effect. The door opened and Ah ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... The roast ox and the feast. Making bread. The surprising novelties for the warriors. Determining to make guns before dismantling. Building a new wagon. Uraso directing the work of the men. The universal tattoo. Its significance. Designating name and rank. Clothing. Blakely drilling the army at the Brabo village. News of the approach of the old chief Suros. The Professor and party receiving him with honor. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay |
