The Old Man and the Sea: Alternate Ending

The ever present question of the battle that Santiago had with this fish is who was going to win? Is Santiago going to come out on top and kill the fish during his battle? Or is the fish going to wear Santiago down and be able to escape from the hook? What I think would have been an excellent (and very depressing) ending for the book would be if both had died out there at sea. Santiago could kick the bucket first, either succumbing to his injuries or fatigue (perhaps his cut could have gotten infected) and he died out in the middle of the sea, perhaps never to be found. For the ending to work however he would have had to stab the fish with the harpoon first so that the fish would succumb to it's injuries and then be devoured by sharks. This just screams bleak to me because both the great creatures (man and fish) die at the hands of one another and meet their untimely end. Even more depressing is the thought of how Manolin would handle it. The idea that your mentor just goes out to sea one day and never returns is a classic one. Perhaps he would spiral into a depression and this event would haunt the rest of his adult life. Or maybe he could always hold onto that faint and optimistic point of view that Santiago would one day return. To me the idea of bleak and depressing ending where evil triumphs and good meets it's end has always been more appealing to me. Usually books where the outright evil protagonist is the subject, or if it is an anti-hero always speak more strongly to me. This is why I would have liked it if Hemingway would have ended the book on a more depressing note. I'm not a bad person by any stretch but the idea of good defeating evil has been so played out it's not very entertaining any more. When you get a case where the villain triumphs or the hero of the novel is evil are always more interesting.