"Rataplan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... And the two armies now the advance began. In the Moorish host resounded of the drums the rataplan. It was among the Christians a marvel sore to some, For never had they heard it, since but newly were they come. On Diego and Ferrando greater wonder yet did fall, And of their free will thither they would not have come at all. To what he said who was ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... It could not possibly have been one man who did it all, for the energies of no one man that ever lived could have been equal to the task. Most of the time it was far away, and it only made two daily promenades past the hotel, but whenever I listened for it I could hear it, beating the same unweary rataplan. Then at intervals all day and every day, the big gun boomed and the clarion blared until I used to dream that I was back at Plevna or the Shipka Pass, and could not get my "copy" to London and New York because Monsieur Dorn had filled the Houssy Wood with Cossacks from Janenne. It may be supposed ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray |
