第7章 The Old Mans Victory[第8页/共16页]

I'm tireder than I have ever been,he thought,and now the trade wind is rising.But that will be good to take him in with.I need that badly.

Make him pay for the line,he thought.Make him pay for it.

The old man held him with his left hand and his shoulders now and stooped down and scooped up water in his right hand to get the crushed dolphin flesh off his face.He was afraid that it might nauseate him and he would vomit and lose his strength.When his face was cleaned he washed his right hand in the water over the side and then let it stay in the salt water while he watched the first light come before the sunrise.He's headed almost east,he thought.That means he is tired and going with the current.Soon he will have to circle. Then our true work begins.

“Be calm and strong,old man,”he said.

When he was even with him and had the fish's head against the bow he could not believe his size.But he untied the harpoon rope from the bitt,passed it through the fish's gills and out his jaws,made a turn around his sword then passed the rope through the other gill,made another turn around the bill and knotted the double rope and made it fast to the bitt in the bow.He cut the rope then and went astern to noose the tail.The fish had turned silver from his original purple and silver,and the stripes showed the same pale violet color as his tail.They were wider than a man's hand with his fingers spread and the fish's eye looked as detached as the mirrors in a periscope or as a saint in a procession.