Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-07-11
But the flying phantoms win in the

But the flying phantoms win in the
end.
Ho! ho! young man, no! no!
Have you ever seer the gathering
of the whirlwind? - the mechanism of
the water spout at it's source? 1t is
rather like the massing of the clouds
of consequence, the whirlwind of fate
A man has voyaged all the day on
some semi-tropic lake, through the
summer heat, under a sky FURNISHED
and cloudless. The low, swampy
shores in front, and to the left, as
broken smudges. To the right there
is. a forest, fringed with palm trees.
Far away, among the broken smudges
the white houses of the town, which
IS his destination, dance uncertainty
upside down on the hazy horizon, like
the city of a mirage! but the utter
calm will not let him reach the city.
The heat steals the energy which
might have bred suspicion of this
soundless, cloudless world. Looking
back lazily, he suddenly notices be-
tween his boat and the fringe of
palms something which looks like a
cloud OF steam, rising out of the lake;
but it only curiosity. Fear will
come later. Then it begins to twirl
like the draperies of a Nautch girl,
little tendrils Of vapor detach them
selves and drift upwards, pretty little
sprite-like children of the spectre
which is rising behind him. All day
he has longed for clouds to break the
monotony of the staring sky and give
him respite from the torture of the
sun. There is a very black cloud over
head now. Those little harmless
sprites have woven it. OF a sudden the
silence is broken by the jabber of
myriad insects and reptiles along the
shore, like the chatter of waiting
thousands in an ampitheatre- "Ippe,
coax coax then the alligators be-
gin to below in the swamps, and
down in the lake, under the becalmed
heat. From far away on the cattle
ranges ONE a lowing sound with a
note of fear in it. The beasts have
smelt out the angel of destruction
which has been loosed in the land. 1t
comes through a narrow path in the
forest an icy breath rushing
through the heat bending down the
tree tops as though a giant was fore
ing it's way through them. The long
pennons of the palm trees stream out
for a moment, then it leaves them
and rushes across the lake, so quick
ly that it hardly ticks the water into
foam. The insect chorus, which had
ceased with alarming a%bruptness, be-
gins again, but more quavering; they
are asking each other who will be
taken, who will be left? The man in
the boat was the last created thing
to feel that something was wrong.
His sense of omnipotence is not so
easily conquered; but he feels dis
turbed as he looks back and notes how
the spectre has grown. 1t is twirling
upwords, and yet siding towards him.
He hears a sound like the tap of a
drum the first beat of a tom-tom at
some mysterious rites of demon wor-
ship. He suddenly feels lonely, as
though the powers on whom he had
leant had forsaken him and left him
to be the sport of the creatures Of
darkness. Everything in front of him
is still clear and sunny, but his past
is rising UP behind him. At the sound
of the thunder the chatter of insects
ceased again, but the moan of the cat
tie comes louder. He looks back fear
fully at the spectre. 1t has linked
itself up with the clouds overhead, and
they are dancing towards him across
teh water. hand in hand. The surface,
as it comes, is broken up and dashed
into foam, as though by water-devils
sporting in front of it to see the fun.
In a moment the mar feels very weak
and small, a f1y-speck on the face of
the universe. The angel of destruction
will pass over him in a moment, and
nothing of him will remain but the
thoughts he has thought. He watches
the water spout, too hypnotized even
to lower the sail. AS he watches, a
flame corkscrews down the advancing
column of water, there comes a clap
of thunder, and the broken water
spout is dashed against him like a
whirlwind. That mirrored lake is now
a tumble of frantic water, on which
his boat sometimes appears on the
top of a wave. His world is falling to
pieces around him with %ferocious
crashes. When it seems as though ma
ture had done its worst, still greater
forces are loosed- louder thunder,
more binding lightning, crueller hur.
ricane. He feels smaller and smaller;
the cities men have built shrink to
ant-heaps, existing by s%ufferance. He
wonders how men have ever dared to
patronize the gods, who WELD such
weapons as are t%hrashing him now.
And because he has acknowledged his
nothingness and lost his egotism, he
is, perhaps, allowed to be hurled, limp,
but alive. on to the shore which was
his destination.
Lady Kitty and her mother return
ed to Donoyle from Paris on the Mon
day.
On Wednesday night there was to
be a dinner party at the castle. Lady
Donoyle always gave a series of dinner
parties to "the quality" who inhabited
that end of the country when she re-
turned from a long absence. AS this
party was to formally the
engagement of her daughter to Van
draken, she hoped the people would
overlook the fact that she was in
mourning.
Her mothers influence, the absence
of Vandraken, the materialism of life