The Mathews journal. (Mathews C.H. [Court House]) 1903-1937, 1908-07-02
THE GIANT RAY. !
S0@ 0O-
By Fisher Anes, Jr.

In marching order the professor
presented a complex appearance. A
greenish veil hung from the rim of
ais swollen and spotless helmet to his
shoulders, which were clad in a coat
'itted with an extraordinary number
of pockets. On the lower half of his
person he wore tweed knickerbockers
and cloth puttees with white spats.
minnow net and a camp-stool with
pneumatic seat were bound upon his
oack, and in his hands he carried a
'heaf of rods and a repeating rifle.
BY his side young Boiling, with a
Dit of shark-line round his waist to
keep his shirt down and his trousers
IN, and with plenty of tanned skin
visible, seemed figure of barbarism,
out the contrast vas only external.
rhe Boston professor and the brown
Floridian were pupils at the same
school, and youth knew at first hand
some of the wOndeful facts that age
had met only in textbooks.
The professor had come to study
marine animals, and when he met
Boiling on the beach and talked with
1im, he beamed upon the tall, 1.-the
BOY whose eye was as keen as 4
aeron's, and offered him three dollars
4 day for his services. Five dollars
would not have been enough to Danish
he repugnance Boiling felt at first
sight of the knickerbockers and spats,
out when he found out the sort OF
nan the professor really was, he sur
rendered TO him completely.
Those were pleasant days. They
explored reef and shore and pot-hole,
and gave each other of their own
knowledge and learned new lessons
together. One day they dropped an
shor on a shoal between two man.
grove points, where the yellow CLINT
0f sand quivered up through the
water. 1t was warm there and pro-
.ected, and many smaller species of
lsh swan busily about in its COM
parative quiet. 1t was good collect
ing-ground. The professor, with eyes
snapping behind the green veil,
dropped a close-meshed seine over the
side and began to draw it through
the water at the end of a long bamboo
cod.
Perhaps the light disturbance of its
passage was the attraction. At any
rate, he had made but two or three
attempts when a broad underwater
shadow drew down upon the launch
and paused below the next, which the
professor i'll his curiosity held mo-
tionless.
What is that?" he asked. and
pointed.
Boiling looked over the gunwale
with no more than idle interest.
What did you see? Where?" he
said. The shadow stirred at the mo-
ment, became more distinct and
Opaque, and the professor gazed down
with startled eyes at the rising bulk
Of the most repulsye fish he had ever
seen.
its the devil" exclaimed Boiling,
stepping back from the gunwale.
The professor had lost his ruddy
color.
"Manta birostrisi" he breathed.
He caught Boiling by the sleeve.
What are those big spots? What
they're eyes, Look at them"
The gigantic ray rose until a scant
film of water protected it back, and
peered upward with cold eyes set
shallow and wide apart. For a mo-
ment 1t lay there, undulating like a
sail in light air; then with a supple
folding OF its huge pancake body, -
curved downward and became a
shadow again, that drifted over the
wavering yellow bottom and disap-
peared.
The professor drew a long\aud sat
isfied breath. and looked up at the
water.