Shortly I saw scores of lights twinkling through the bushes: every man in camp turned out, and with tom-toms beating and horns blowing came running to the scene.
As quickly as possible I posted them in a half-circle round the thicket, and gave the head jemadar instructions to start a simultaneous beating of the tom-toms and cans as soon as he judged that I had had time to get round to the other side.
But not a chief was there in all that crowd who did not partake of the flesh of his late queen, while horn trumpets blared and war tom-toms were wildly beaten.
The camel that was to carry Lulu to her new home was decorated and made ready, and the torches and tom-toms seen to and handed out to those who were to accompany the procession on its way to the camp of Abd-el-Thullam.
Tom-toms were going all the night; at times the whole air quivered with the rhythmical sounds.
As I did so the beating of the tom-toms broke on my ears with such vehemence that I was well-nigh stunned, and a waving dance of torches and cressets bewildered my eyes.
You don't know what a relief it is to be out of reach of all the tom-toms and shrill street cries and the constant hum of the bazaars, not to speak of the vile odours.
Whatt's the good to us of the Government order stopping tom-toms and conchs at certain hours onlee.
Sounds came faintly from the barrio; tom-toms and many drums beat a monotonous serenade.
Soon voices became distinguishable, and he heard tom-toms beating the evening serenade.
On one side the American band gave the first notes of civilized music that the Moros had ever heard; opposite, rows of brass tom-toms responded mournfully.
The savages crowded around as the Americans swayed to the waltz, and their surprise was no less than that of the Americans, when the tom-toms stirred the Moros to the dance and they whirled and crouched in native fashion.
A second beating of tom-toms thundered through the barrio.
Your pinky's over," said Dicky, and Reddy Toms picked up a flat stone and scraped it over the top of the bat, and Fatty howled and let go.
Now Reddy Toms was a boy in his own class, and you could always tell him a long way off because his head was covered with red hair as thick as a thatched roof, and his face was spotted all over, like a snake's, with freckles.
And, of course, Reddy Toms and Dicky Means had to help him.
This didn't seem to suit Marmaduke, and he tried hard to remember a name Reddy Toms had told him, out of a book of Reddy's, all about pirates and things.
There had been feasting and much thumping of tom-toms and whinings of curious fiddles on deck during dinner the night before, where the crew were entertaining the Pasha's body-guard.
As he walked on, the sound of some tom-toms dulled by distance came to his ears.
Last night she had fed the camel and caressed it, and she had listened, half awe-struck, to the tom-toms in the distance.
The tom-toms had ceased: there was quiet, an interval of rest presumably for the dancers.
When old Jerry Toms and my humble self had scarcely gone through three glasses, he said to me, and I said to him, that we were carrying on too coolly in a hostile town like this.
Jerry Toms and I were ready, long before that day was out, to tie up our minds in a bow-line knot, and never more undo them.
The horses were stalled, and the baggage housed in a very fine inn, looking up the street, and then the Captain told Toms and me to house up our jibs, while he went out.
Meanwhile Jerry Toms and I shaped our course for the Braunton road, and hit it, and held on to it.
This appeared to me to be a perfectly fair offer; but Jerry Toms took a little offence, on account of not knowing the neighbourhood.
But before long, Toms and I began to feel that we had no right to abandon our commander so.
It was my privilege to sit up in the foretop, as might be, with Coxswain Toms in the mizentop, and the Captain down in the waist by himself.
But from the town behind came terrifying yells, the rattle of tom-toms and occasionally a rifle shot as the braves prepared their spirits for the test of battle.
The dance, beginning slowly, waxed wilder; the tom-toms beat more vibrantly, until the whole village was encircled by the painted and bonneted tribesmen.
The soft monotonous throb of tom-toms came beating through the ambient air like a pulse of teeming life; and when he left her at her sister's door the purple darkness of an Eastern night had curtained off the sea.
The shadows were black and sharp in the bright moonlight and the tom-toms throbbed in the city below.
On entering the town we saw a number of persons approaching, several playing on tom-toms and various musical instruments, and others shouting and singing.
These were mostly drummers, who beat their huge tom-toms with right good will, making the most fearful and deafening din.
Tom-toms were heard beating in all directions, and horns sounding, and the whole capital was in an uproar.
The Tom-toms Dost thou hear the tom-toms throbbing, Like a lonely lover sobbing For the beauty that is robbing him of all his life's delight?
Tom-toms (native drums) and elephants usually form part of the procession, and turmeric water is sprinkled.
On the third day, the villagers are again entertained to a luncheon of rice and milk pudding, and on the fourth day the girls are taken out in procession for worship at the nearest temple amidst tom-toms and shouting.
In some places, the girl is taken to a separate house for the bath on the fourth day, whence she returns to her house in procession, accompanied by tom-toms and shouting.
The orgy at the fire was lifting its tone of riot into one of savagery and menace, the tom-toms beat more swiftly with gaining excitement, and the yapping yells were growing more frequent.
Along toward dawn, presaged by the westward wheeling of the big stars, tom-toms began to beat throughout the maze of lodges.
McElroy saw that around the central lodge before the gate there was a solid pack of prostrate Indians covering the ground like a cloth, and from this centre came the tom-toms and the wailing.
How long, think you, will they be content with the dance and the chanting, the tom-toms and the empty fire?
The sudden striking up of the tom-toms answered him.
A huge fire was built in the centre of the camp, tom-toms placed beside it in the hands of old men, and, forming in a giant circle, the braves began a dance.
There were three of these fires now, and the tom-toms were booming their hollow notes over the tundra as Alan quickened his steps.
The drumming of the tom-toms ceased, and the beaters leaped to their feet.
He wanted to shout; he wanted to throw up his arms and laugh as Tautuk and Amuk Toolik and a score of others had laughed to the beat of the tom-toms last night, not because he was amused, but out of sheer happiness.
The cavalry had to retire, leaving a few men wounded, and by the time our heavy guns had arrived both Long Toms had got clean away.
The Long Toms laid at an angle of forty-five plumped their huge shells into the British guns at a range where the latter would not dream of unlimbering.
At the Queen's command a bevy of very comely misses from the mission school started a himine or hymn, to the tune of a couple of tom-toms and a concertina.
They did not know that three-quarters of the Toms had been in bed the night before, undisturbed by the martyrs' supreme effort.
Yet, monotonous as ever, there was the evening cry of the muezzin and the persistent thrumming of toms-toms and saringis which evening brings to a native city.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "toms" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
