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That can be replaced.

But who replaces this fish if I hook some fish and it cuts him off? I don't know what that fish was that took the bait just now.

It could have been a marlin or a broadbill or a shark.

I never felt him.

I had to get rid of him too fast.

Aloud he said, "I wish I had the boy."

But you haven't got the boy, he thought. You have only yourself and you had better work back to the last line now, in the dark or not in the dark, and cut it away and hook up the two reserve coils.

So he did it.

It was difficult in the dark and once the fish made a surge that pulled him down on his face and made a cut below his eye.

The blood ran down his cheek a little way.

But it coagulated and dried before it reached his chin and he worked his way back to the bow and rested against the wood.

He adjusted the sack and carefully worked the line so that it came across a new part of his shoulders and, holding it anchored with his shoulders, he carefully felt the pull of the fish and then felt with his hand the progress of the skiff through the water.

I wonder what he made that lurch for, he thought.

The wire must have slipped on the great hill of his back.

Certainly his back cannot feel as badly as mine does.

But he cannot pull this skiff forever, no matter how great he is.

Now everything is cleared away that might make trouble and I have a big reserve of line; all that a man can ask.

"Fish," he said softly, aloud, "I'll stay with you until I am dead."

He'll stay with me too, I suppose, the old man thought and he waited for it to be light.

It was cold now in the time before daylight and he pushed against the wood to be warm.

I can do it as long as he can, he thought.

And in the first light the line extended out and down into the water.

The boat moved steadily and when the first edge of the sun rose it was on the old man's right shoulder.

"He's headed north," the old man said. The current will have set us far to the eastward, he thought. I wish he would turn with the current. That would show that he was tiring.

When the sun had risen further the old man realized that the fish was not tiring. There was only one favorable sign. The slant of the line showed he was swimming at a lesser depth. That did not necessarily mean that he would jump. But he might.

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