Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1902-04-03
THE CURIOSITY OF A GIANT SQUID.
TALE OF DEEP-SEA DIVER.
By E. McFARLANE
A TALE OF A DEEP-SEA DIVER.
By ARTHUR e. McFARLANE.

| of my fun was in going fishing for the
squid. They way of catching it was
| new idea to me. They take l0-foot
cane poles and fasten punches of stur-
| geon hooks to the ends of them, like
lot of very short lashes on very long
whip stocks; and they manage to get
'Signor Pulpu'-as the polite Paler.
mese call the beast-tangled up in
them pretty badly.
They do their fishing on nights
when there's a moon, for squid make
it their habit to spend their day out
at sea and to come back inshore late
in the evening. When it is moonlight
they can be spotted very easDy, for
they swim just below the surface, and
their pinwheel motion roughens up the
water above them till the bright sill
| yer is in oxidized whorls. AS soon as
pulpu has circled himself into strik-
ing distance bunch of hooks is slid
| under him, and one fine Italian twist
ana jerk does his business before he
knows what's killed him.
And they're not slaughtered wan
tonly, either, but the pot and oven,
like any other fish. Although / was
naturally rather stand-oftish about
them at first, after I'd tasted them
| boiled in oil and caraway seed, and
lathered over with eggplant sauce,
| couldn't help owning that Americans
aren't the only people who know
what's good.
Il suppose, too, my eating them
n N 10
lot; anyhow, even while we caught
most of them off the very mole that l
was working beside, l don't think
gave two anxious thoughts to them
when | was in the water. More than
likely that was because those I'd seen
caught never weighed more than 25
pounds, and because l took it for
granted that they were all out at sea
in my working hours. Well, they
weren't all under % pounds, or all
out at sea at daylight, either!
Il learned this one afternoon when
something went wrong with the jerry
rugged derrick we were using. For
half an hour no tackle had come down
to me, and at last got tired of doing
nothing. I'd never been between
decks at all, for as the boat was a
common lighter, everything I'd had
to handle was piled up above; but now
that | had the time, thought I'd like
to see how the Sicilian lighterman had
his living quarters furnished. So l
climbed down the hatchway ladder.
You often hear people speaking
of black Darkness and, as I've had
cause to know, it's possible for some
caves and mine cuttings to be pretty
pitchy; but they're nothing to what the
hold of a wreck can show. When
you're down any depth to speak of,
there's almost no such thing as re-
fracted light; if you don't get it in the
form of direct rays, you don't get it
at all.
When stepped out of the shaft of
hatchway twilight into the tween
decks shadow 1t was like passing
through a curtain; and as l felt my
way toward where the cooks galley
ought to be, it was like thrusting my
arms and legs inlo a new element
one thicker than water and not even
liquid it was kind of furry and seemed
to slide and creep.
'It had it's enect on me, and the
gloom and lonesome horrors that no
uiver working In darkness is ever
without. were beginning to craw over
me, when suddenly something whipped
and closed about my wrist. 1t was
like big roll of cold, slippery elastic.
1T held me only moment, but it
Il Aac ol ri
swallowing. l don't know where my
blood went to, but | know it dropped
out of my heart as If an exhaust had
been opened in the bottom of it; and
on my feet were the pigs of lead that
hold you down in nightmares.
Il stayed right there. listening to
my pulse beating in my ears and feel
ing myself grow sick; and when | did
pull myself together enough to reach
for the signal line, my arm was
clutched like a flash. The next mo-
ment my other was a prisoner, too.
Then the tentacles began to nose about
all over me ..ne eels.
Il did not need my eyes to know
what it was. I'd heard of the curiosi-
ty of the giant rock squid, and I'd
often watched the little ones in the
Palermo aquarium. They'll lay hold
OF something new to them, and paw
it over deliberately by the hour,
squeezing and pulling it, and never
letting go for a minute.
'All this came back to me, and |
could judge the size of the squid that
hao got hold of me by TIE length of
its arms. Its eyes told it's Duik, too;
for when I'd got my strength again,
and my struggling began to turn it's
curiosity into anger, they came out
phosphorescent in the darkness. They
were hideous anough danger signals,
and as l wrenched and heayed they
lighted up uglier and uglier. For all
l could do the grip on me only tight
ened
But it wasn't the tightness of the
grin that was sending inc crawlinp