第8章 The Sharks Attack[第6页/共14页]

The breeze was steady.It had backed a little further into the northeast and he knew that meant that it would not fall off.The old man looked ahead of him but he could see no sails nor could he see the hull nor the smoke of any ship. There were only the flying fish that went up from his bow sailing away to either side and the yellow patches of gulf-weed.He could not even see a bird.

The shark was not an accident .He had come up from deep down in the water as the dark cloud of blood had settled and dispersed in the mile deep sea.He had come up so fast and absolutely without caution that he broke the surface of the blue water and was in the sun.Then he fell back into the sea and picked up the scent and started swimming on the course the skiff and the fish had taken.

He had ailed for two hours, resting in the stern and sometimes chewing a bit of the meat from the marlin,trying to rest and to be strong,when he saw the first of the two sharks.

“But man is not made for defeat,”he said.“A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”I am sorry that I killed the fish though,he thought.Now the bad time is coming and I do not even have the harpoon.The dentuso is cruel and able and strong and intelligent.But I was more intelligent than he was. Perhaps not,he thought.Perhaps I was only better armed.