The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-07-04

the dwarf. line Clauoilu Drought you 10
seek is that whirling Maelstrom which cuts
its planes Of waters on this coast The way
is closed up behind You z cow get out if you
can through tie Maelstronn
ssThen the dwarf disappeared just as if
there never had been dwarf. and the Troll
stood under the roar Of the Maelstrom, his
knees shaking; he felt himself dead Troll.
For in those days the Maelstrom was a boil
ing whirlpool miles in circumference When
sailors became suddenly aware of gliding
across field of water depressed toward
some unknown center, they knew the Macl-
strom haG them First she described huge
circle, as il swinging them around her vic
TINS head. Then they'felt her fury. She
whir,ed and beat them, she rolled them over
and crunched them in her awful jaws, out
Of which no ship OF man ta!er rose again.
Pretty soon voice near the Troll said ::
'Who knows, Troll, but you may conquer
this Maelstrom aid quiet its rage for the
remainder of the centuries.
HE looked around and saw white child
you have worked in the quarrics and knit
your strength says the child, and l can
show you the way to the ore-dwarfs, and in
their furnace you will find hammer and
anvil ready for any body who wants to use
them. Never mind what any dwerf does,
but take your heart, your brain, your hands
and feet one after the other, and beat and
temper them on the anvil
s'They are all flesh, objected the Troll.
a nice temper l should beat into them on
metal
THE hammer and anvil are not metals
says the child. You make yourself able to
rise through the Maelstrom.'
$50 the Troll went to the furnace Of the
ore-dwarfs He saw them fuse and force
into upper rock and soil the metals for which
men dig. The black fellows would seize jets
Of fiery liquid, and leaping like meteors,
fling them to force their way upward. They
looked curiously at the Troll and made
faces But without speaking to them, he
went to the hammer and anvil which the
child showed him. These tools, while he
worked with them, passed through all the
colors of the rainbow. They must be made
of light he thought.
'.He beat away on his heart, but the more
he thumped the larger it grew, and when
he put it back into place it pushed out his
chest and lifted him off the ground. At
that the Troll dropped his tools, dashed out
of the furnace and threw himself across the
reservoir, which opened into the sea, sure
that he could face the Maelstrom. His light
heart carried him straight up the whirlpool,
but before he had risen six fatholns he was
pounded and suffocated-the sea threw him
back into the reservoir and shook her
witch's fist at him through the opening, "a
If Daying: is that enough nr yous'
'The Troll hmped back to the furnace,
where every grinning dwarf capered at
him. But he hammered his brains and con-
densed them until they became magnetic,
forcibly drawing or repelling objects. And
when he put them back in his head he saw
himself differently, and did not attempt the
whirlpool again until he had followed all
the child's Notwithstanding his hands
and feet to an amber. glow,-tae very tint Of
light under water.
'Then he crept out and launched into the
base Of the Maelstrom. But it beat him
down, and lashed him across the face with
bodies, and stung him with sea-nettles, un-
til be threw up his arms and was sucked
among the dead in the reservoir, scarcely
able to lift his nostrils over the brink. So
stubborn was the Troll, however, that he
crept again to the furnace, and this time the
dwarfs stuck their fame-like tongues in his
face, and bent over and slapping themselves
and twisting their tiny black noses in de-
riSion.
"Without watching them, the Troll tenn
pered himself a third time. And after that
trial Of the Maelstrom he would not have
lifted finger for his life and the whole
world besides.
s'The child came and smoothed his bruised
limbs, saying, Poor little hill Troll
"Im ready to die,' said the Troll But
after he had rested long time he added:
I'll die trying it, though
''Over and over he tempered himself, over
and over he tried the Maelstrom, astonished'
to find how life and determination did linger
in him, until he rose through the whirlpool
and drew up calm under his feet. To this
day the Maelstrom remains conquered, and
is no longer dangerous except in winter
storms And the whole worldwide did not
care pin for the Troll when he was beaten
Just to death in his subterranean reservoir,
could not praise him enough"
FRO BE CONTINUED