The sun was two hours higher now and it did not hurt his eyes so much to look into the east.There were only three boats in sight now and they showed very low and far inshore.
He shipped his oars and brought a small line from under the bow.It had a wire leader and a medium-sized hook and he baited it with one of the sardines.He let it go over the side and then made it fast to a ring bolt in the stern.Then he baited another line and left it coiled in the shade of the bow. He went back to rowing and to watching the long winged black bird who was working,now,low over the water.
Now the man watched the dip of the three sticks over the side of the skiff and rowed gently to keep the lines straight up and down and at their proper depths.It was quite light and any moment now the sun would rise.
In the dark the old man could feel the morning coming and as he rowed he heard the trembling sound as flying fish left the water and the hissing that their stiff set wings made as they soared away in the darkness.He was very fond of flying fish as they were his principal friends on the ocean.He was sorry for the birds,especially the small delicate dark terns that were always flying and looking and almost never finding,and he thought,“The birds have a harder life than we do except for the robber birds and the heavy strong ones.Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel?She is kind and very beautiful.But she can be so cruel and it comes so suddenly and such birds that fly,dipping and hunting,with their small sad voices are made too delicately for the sea.”