“I'll rest on the next turn as he goes out,”he said.“I feel much better.Then in two or three turns more I will have him.”
“Be calm and strong,old man,”he said.
The old man looked carefully in the glimpse of vision that he had. Then he took two turns of the harpoon line around the bitt in the bow and laid his head on his hands.
“There will be bad weather in three or four days,”he said.“But not tonight and not tomorrow.Rig now to get some sleep,old man,while the fish is calm and steady.”
It has more nourishment than almost any fish, he thought.At least the kind of strength that I need.Now I have done what I can,he thought.Let him begin to circle and let the fight come.
He is hitting the wire leader with his spear,he thought. That was bound to come.He had to do that.It may make him jump though and I would rather he stayed circling now. The jumps were necessary for him to take air.But after that each one can widen the opening of the hook wound and he can throw the hook.
The old man felt faint and sick and he could not see well. But he cleared the harpoon line and let it run slowly through his raw hands and,when he could see,he saw the fish was on his back with his silver belly up.The shaft of the harpoon was projecting at an angle from the fish's shoulder and the sea was discoloring with the red of the blood from his heart.First it was dark as a shoal in the blue water that was more than a mile deep.Then it spread like a cloud.The fish was silver and still and floated with the waves.