out and the old man was raising the strain to breaking point and raising it to breaking point again and again. He had been pulled down tight onto the bow and his face was in the cut slice of dolphin and he could not move.
This is what we waited for, he thought. So now let us take it. Make him pay for the line, he thought. Make him pay for it.
He could not see the fish’s jumps but only heard the breaking of the ocean and the heavy splash as he fell. The speed of the line was cutting his hands badly but he had always known this would happen and he tried to keep the cutting across the calloused parts and not let the line slip into the palm nor cut the fingers.
If the boy was here he would wet the coils of line, he thought. Yes. If the boy were here. If the boy were here.
The line went out and out and out but it was slowing now and he was making the fish earn each inch of it. Now he got his head up from the wood and out
