Thamud

“ Thaliard, a lord of Antioch.--Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1608) .
Tham ́muz, God of the Syrians, and fifth in order of the hierarchy of hell: (1) Satan, (2) Beëlzebub, (3) Moloch, (4) Chemos, (5) Thammuz (the same as Ado ́nis) . Thammuz was slain by a wild boar in Mount Lebanon, from whence the river Adonis descends, the water of which, at a certain season of the year, becomes reddened. ”

“ Tham, it is like this,” said the first. “None of us dare bring in a bigger catch.”
“Why not?”
“If he ever lost that prize he'd be worse than ever, Mr. Tham. He'd treat the man who won to a string of words that would cut. He has a wicked tongue, Mr. Tham. And he'd never forget the man who defeated him—never!”
“Well, what about it?” Tham wanted to know.
“It is like this, Mr. Tham—only guests at the hotel are eligible to the contest. And—er—all of us have business dealings now and then with Joshua Simlon. He'd just about wreck the man who dared win that prize.” ”

“ Tham interrupted.
“If I should pick a stool pigeon, as I was going to say, he will not be Nifty Noel. Word of honor!”
“Very well,” said Tham. “Did you have a good trip?”
“Oh, man!” Detective Craddock gasped. “The beauties I caught! Bass, Tham—and trout!”
“Tharkth and whaleth, I thuppothe!” Tham said,
“It's the life, Tham. If I was a rich man I'd run all over the world fishing. Boy, you want to get away some time and go up there. Go after the finny fighters, Tham, old-timer. Tackle the fresh-water fries! ”

“ For the myth of Thammuz, mentioned in the Nabataean writings as a man who was put to death by the king of Babylon, whom he had commanded to introduce the worship of the seven planets and the twelve signs of the zodiac, and who was exalted to a god after his death, and honoured with a mourning festival, is nothing more than a refined interpretation of the very ancient nature-worship which spread over the whole of Hither Asia, and in which the power of the sun over the vegetation of the year was celebrated. ”

“ The car was jammed, and Tham and the man in gray were forced to stand near one of the doors, which was as Thubway Tham desired it. At every station men, women, and. children crowded in and out and jostled them, and Tham knew that another little jostle at the proper time probably would go unnoticed by the man in gray.
Tham managed to swing against him as the train rounded a curve, and gave a little gasp of joy. He had felt a wallet in the hip pocket of the newspaper man! ”

“ Folks say that her spirit still haunts that wood, and that on dark and stormy nights her shrieks may be heard, accompanied by the growling of the wehr-wolves and the laugh of the exulting demon. But you and I, Brother Thames, know well how foolish mortals are with their tales of horror, and how ready they are to mistake a creaking tree for a shriek and a moonbeam for a spirit. ”

“ THE WAPPING DELUGE.
Father Thames, not content with his customary course, has been “swelling it” in the course of the week, through some of the streets of the metropolis. As if to inculcate temperance, he walked himself down into public-house cellars, filling all the empty casks with water, and adulterating all the beer and spirits that came in his way; turning also every body’s fixed into floating capital. ”

“ Gone are the pure peace, the cool calm, the tranquil seclusion which—say twenty years ago—rendered it the most charming haunt of the lover of Nature, of the poet, too much in populous city pent, who sought an alterative of mental repose in most lovely and most quiet scenery. An aged ghost, restlessly revisiting the cari luoghi, must often find a change, great and sad, in the old places in which life was lived in love and joy; and he who knew the tranquil Thames in the old time, long ago, must find, in its brawling loudness of to-day, a change which renders sad the heart. ”

“ So he forgot Detective Craddock for the time being, and thought of entering the subway and looking for a victim. He left the bench after a time and walked across to Broadway, and continued to Times Square. There he caught a downtown express, and glanced around at those nearest him.
Immediately Tham spotted a man who looked like a person of comfortable means. He was a huge man who radiated prosperity, and Tham could tell at a glance that his mind was upon some matter of business, that he was oblivious of his immediate surroundings. Such men make good victims. ”

“ I think that I never was upon the Thames without seeing some specimen, or specimens, of female loveliness and grace. Pretty girls belong as naturally as the swans do to our Thames. It is a singular fact that natural objects of great charm allure to themselves suitable women. Art does not, as a rule, draw to itself much feminine youth and charm; but the Thames emphatically does so. Look at that boat which we have just passed. What loveliness and love in those two young, graceful girls who are being rowed, while one of them—the one in the boating hat—steers. ”

“ He thinks he shall write father's life, when we are settled in a new home. We are to be cleared out o' this in alle haste; for the king grutches at our lingering over father's footsteps, and yet when the news of the bloody deed was taken to him, he scowled at Queen Anne, saying, "Thou art the cause of this man's death!"
Flow on, bright shining Thames. A good, brave man hath walked aforetime on your margent, himself as bright, and usefull, and delightsome as you, sweet river. There's a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. ”

“ Tham could not remain in low spirits for long, however. He had an engagement to meet Nettie Burde and take her to luncheon, and so, before he had walked two blocks, the sun was shining on the world once more, so to speak,
Tham glanced at his watch and discovered that he would just have time to reach the office building in which Miss Burde worked. He quickened his stride, and his face glowed with anticipation. Perhaps, after all, it would be foolish to take notice of the newspaper story, he told himself. When a man meant to be married he was an open target for all would-be jokers, Tham knew. ”

“ And out from the fields around, glitter the faint lights of more distant camps, as here some great lord’s followers lie mustered, and there false John’s French mercenaries hover like crouching wolves without the town.
And so, with sentinel in each dark street, and twinkling watch-fires on each height around, the night has worn away, and over this fair valley of old Thame has broken the morning of the great day that is to close so big with the fate of ages yet unborn. ”

“ Tham sneered. “I'll die of old age long before that time, Craddock. Where have you been lately? I haven't theen you for thome time. Houndin' thome poor thimp, I thuppothe. Been in court?”
“Ah, no!” said Craddock, grinning and sitting down on the bench. “Merit aways is rewarded, old-timer, sooner or later, though some men declare to the contrary.”
“You talk like an ath!” Tham complained.
“The powers that be gave me a little vacation, Tham. I caught a gentleman well known in burglary circles, got battered up a bit in the fight with him, and I was slipped ten days sick leave with pay.” ”

“ The dark river caught the light, and threw it shimmering up on the great black hulls, which shone again in the water below; and the Thames, with all its dirt and all its dead, looked radiant. But Thomas felt nothing of its beauty. If Nature had ever had a right of way in his heart, she was now shut out. ”

“ The Thames to seaward looks different to me every time I float on its noble flood. I have seen it from on board steamers large and small, from an Indiaman’s deck, the gunwale of a cutter, and the poop of an ironclad, as well as from rowboat and canoe, and have penetrated almost every nook and cranny on the water, some of them a dozen times, yet always it is new to see.
Thames river life is a separate world from the land life in houses. The day begins on the water full an hour before sunrise. Cheery voices and hearty faces greet you, and there seems to be no maimed, or sick, or poor. ”

“ How the Egyptians were plagued for despising Moses; and how Ad and Thamed, two ancient tribes of the Arabs, were totally extirpated for the same reason. His stories of his two last were fables of his own invention, which he related unto them after this manner:—that Ad the grandson of Aram, the son of Sem, planted himself after tho confusion of languages in the southern parts of Arabia, there his posterity falling into idolatry, the prophet Hud (whom the Commentators of the Alcoran will have to be Heber) was sent to reclaim them into the true worship ”

“ Tham hurled it the length of the room.
“Thtung!” he hissed. “And by a thimp! I hope he hath theven yearth of bad luck, the thiliy ath! And I hope I have the thame if I ever ride in a compartment again. 'The thuit, thir—a dollar and a half, thir!' I muth be gettin' old like Craddock thaid!”
Tham kicked at the wallet, then opened the window and threw it down into the alley. His heart was filled with bitterness. It was a world of greed and graft, he told himself, in which an ordinary decent crook could not hope to exist without being victimized. ”

“ We have seen, ay, in one little year, the flashing eye dimmed—the round cheek flattened—the bright, hopeful creature, who went forth into the world—rejoicing like the sun to run his course—dragged from the waters of our leaden Thames, a discolored remnant of mortality—recognized only by the mother who looked to him for all the world could give! ”

“ As early man grew to be civilized, as he learned to drain the flooded lands by the side of the stream and turn them from desolate fens and marshes to smiling productive fields, and as he learned slowly how to get from the hillsides and the plain the full value of his labour, so he realized more and more the possibilities of the great river valley.
The Thames flows in what may be regarded as an excellent example of a river-basin. ”

“ As to his story of Thamed, he said that they were an ancient tribe of the Arabs, dwelling on the confines of Syria: and that on their revolt to idolatry God sent unto them the prophet Saleh; that on their demand of a miracle to testify his mission, he caused a rock to bring forth a camel in sight of them all!!!—That they, notwithstanding, in contempt wounded the camel ”

“ The Naturalist on the Thames. By C.J. Cornish, F.Z.S.Seeley & Co., Limited. The love of the Thames is scarcely confined to Londoners; it is always the popular river to Englishmen. Its upper waters are best known to the angler and the boating man; down its course to the sea has travelled from time to time the enterprise of Great Britain. There is an opportunity for a journal to be devoted solely to this river, while a Thames Natural History Society only requires formation for its success to be assured. ”

“ So the broad pale Thames is loved not like the tawny springs of Tyne:
⁠Choice is clear between them for the soul whose vision holds in fee
⁠Here the limitless north-eastern, there the strait south-western sea.
Choice is clear, but dear is either; nor has either not in store
Many a likeness, many a written sign of spirit-searching lore,
⁠Whence the soul takes fire of sweet remembrance, magnified and blest. ”

“ Thubway Tham told himself, and, having decided the question, he crossed his legs, lighted a cigarette, and puffed slowly.
Tham did not feel like descending into the subway and indulging in the act known to the underworld and the police department as “lifting a leather.” Being a successful professional pickpocket, Tham knew that he should not go about his work half asleep unless he courted incarceration, trial, and conviction. ”

“ For coming by way of Thame—which I was advised was to be preferred because some troopers of the Prince Rupert lay at Fawley near to Henley-upon-Thames and harried all travellers with small respect of parties—and staying to bait my horse at the inn, I heard that a notable man was lying dead in one of the chambers. ('Twas Midsummer Day, I remember.) This was Master John Hampden, who had been shot in the shoulder upon Chalgrove Field six days before, and being carried to Thame died there on the very day on which I chanced to pass through. ”

“ The Thames is flowing in the midst of an unbroken forest, its bosom rippled only by the zephyr, the waterfowl, or the bark canoe. Here and there above the tree tops curls of blue smoke arise from the wigwams of the savages, and a savory smell of venison and fish comes up from the Groton shore. Around us spreads the broad fair land known as the Pequot country, extending from the Nahantic, on the west, to the dominion of the Narragansets—the Rhode Island line—on the east, and northward it interlocks with that of the Mohegans, where Uncas, the rebel sachem, afterward bore rule. ”

“ Now Tham had his mind fixed firmly upon the wallet. If he did not get it he was disgraced, he told himself. Should any man give him such a clever tongue lashing as Joshua Simlon had given him and escape unpunished? No!
Tham watched for chances on the train, but could get none. All the way to New York, Thubway Tham, throwing the idea of sleep aside, tried to think of some scheme whereby he could get near Simlon while that man did not know it. Tham began to grow desperate. That wallet would give him revenge and a profit, and Tham wanted both. ”

“ For this Thames is such an avenue and entry into marvellous life that earth can show no greater rival, none more rich in dignity or in the multitude of its merchandise. And if the flood of that merchandise shall cease, and the stream once more go lonely to the sea or carry coracles, it cannot be again as if it had never borne great ships, or swung the Admiral's galley on its tide. ”