The early day was blue and silver; one of those colorful mornings
peculiar to southern Florida. Sandwiched between the earth and the
turquoise sky, the Atlantic lay gleaming like a huge silver wafer in the
sunlight. Not the faintest suggestion of a ripple marred its shining
surface.
Suddenly out of the stillness of the silver water a huge black fin was
lifted, and a little group of men lounging on the deck of an idle
fishing craft drew near the rail and used their glasses.
“Shark,” remarked the captain pleasantly after a moment’s scrutiny. “Who
wants to go out with me for a little fun?”
The hastily lowered lifeboat pointed a slim nose toward the large black
shape thrashing about in the shallow water. Three men were in the
boat--Captain Charles H. Thompson of the yacht “Samoa,” one of the
yacht’s crew, and a winter visitor to southern Florida. As they drew
near, the sailor took one look at the gigantic creature and yelled to
the captain:
“For heaven’s sake, man, don’t harpoon that thing; we will be crushed
like an egg shell!”
Poised in the bow of the boat, harpoon in hand, stood the captain, and
as they drew alongside there was a flash; the steel glittered for a
moment in the sunlight, then sank into the huge black bulk.
Simultaneously the little boat spun around and shot out toward the Gulf
Stream like an agitated and very erratic rocket, flinging great sheets
of spray high into the air as it sped.
Thus began a thirty-nine hours’ ride filled with wildest thrills, during
which time Captain Thompson battled with the fish, the sailor bailed the
boat unceasingly, lest they be swamped, and the tourist raised an
anxious and eloquent voice to high heaven. The men were without food the
entire time, sharing only a small bottle of water among them.
The news of the struggle spread rapidly, and soon hundreds of interested
spectators gathered on the trestle of the East Coast sea-extension
railway. Scores of times the men in the boat escaped death only by a
miracle, as the wildly thrashing black tail missed them but by a hair’s
breadth. Finally, after two days and one night, the monster was worn
out, and the triumphant captor managed to fasten it to the trestle work
on Knight’s Key, where, after a few hours’ rest, it wigwagged a festive
tail, smashing the large pilings as though they were toothpicks. After
another battle the fish was firmly tied up once more, this time to the
yacht “Samoa;” and again it waved a wicked tail, disabling the
thirty-ton yacht by smashing her propeller and breaking the cables. A
tug was then summoned, and the big fellow was towed one hundred and ten
miles to Miami, Florida, where it was viewed by thousands of people.
Five harpoons and one hundred and fifty-one bullets were used in
subduing the monster, and it took five days to finally kill it.
It was thought at first the creature was a whale, but later it was
classified as a fish, for it breathed through gills of which there were
five in number. Upon careful examination it seemed probable that it was
a baby of its species, as the backbone was of a cartilaginous nature, a
condition found only in a young creature; in a full-grown one this
develops into true bone. That it was a deep-sea fish was indicated by
the small eye, which was about the size of a silver dollar. The pressure
of the water is so great at the bottom of the ocean that were the eyes
large they would be ruptured. That the pupil did not dilate and contract
seems additional proof that the fish must have lived at a depth of
probably fifteen hundred or two thousand feet, where there is little
light.
[Illustration: _Photograph by Capt. Chas. H. Thompson_