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I wonder what the sea looks like from that height? They should be able to see the fish well if they do not fly too high.

I would like to fly very slowly at two hundred fathoms high and see the fish from above.

In the turtle boats I was in the cross-trees of the mast-head and even at that height I saw much.

The dolphin look greener from there and you can see their stripes and their purple spots and you can see all of the school as they swim.

Why is it that all the fast-moving fish of the dark current have purple backs and usually purple stripes or spots? The dolphin looks green of course because he is really golden.

But when he comes to feed, truly hungry, purple stripes show on his sides as on a marlin.

Can it be anger, or the greater speed he makes that brings them out?

Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a dolphin.

He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air.

It jumped again and again in the acrobatics of its fear and he worked his way back to the stern and crouching and holding the big line with his right hand and arm, he pulled the dolphin in with his left hand, stepping on the gained line each time with his bare left foot.

When the fish was at the stern, plunging and cutting from side to side in desperation, the old man leaned over the stern and lifted the burnished gold fish with its purple spots over the stern.

Its jaws were working convulsively in quick bites against the hook and it pounded the bottom of the skiff with its long flat body, its tail and its head until he clubbed it across the shining golden head until it shivered and was still.

The old man unhooked the fish, rebaited the line with another sardine and tossed it over.

Then he worked his way slowly back to the bow.

He washed his left hand and wiped it on his trousers.

Then he shifted the heavy line from his right hand to his left and washed his right hand in the sea while he watched the sun go into the ocean and the slant of the big cord.

"He hasn't changed at all," he said. But watching the movement of the water against his hand he noted that it was perceptibly slower.

"I'll lash the two oars together across the stern and that will slow him in the night," he said. "He's good for the night and so am I."

It would be better to gut the dolphin a little later to save the blood in the meat, he thought.

I can do that a little later and lash the oars to make a drag at the same time.

I had better keep the fish quiet now and not disturb him too much at sunset.

The setting of the sun is a difficult time for all fish.

He let his hand dry in the air then grasped the line with it and eased himself as much as he could and allowed himself to be pulled forward against the wood so that the boat took the strain as much, or more, than he did.

I'm learning how to do it, he thought.

This part of it anyway.

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