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The dark water of the true gulf is the greatest healer that there is.

All I must do is keep the head clear.

The hands have done their work and we sail well.

With his mouth shut and his tail straight up and down we sail like brothers.

Then his head started to become a little unclear and he thought, is he bringing me in or am I bringing him in? If I were towing him behind there would be no question.

Nor if the fish were in the skiff, with all dignity gone, there would be no question either.

But they were sailing together lashed side by side and the old man thought, let him bring me in if it pleases him.

I am only better than him through trickery and he meant me no harm.

They sailed well and the old man soaked his hands in the salt water and tried to keep his head clear.

There were high cumulus clouds and enough cirrus above them so that the old man knew the breeze would last all night.

The old man looked at the fish constantly to make sure it was true.

It was an hour before the first shark hit him.

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.

Sometimes he lost the scent. But he would pick it up again, or have just a trace of it, and he swam fast and hard on the course. He was a very big Mako shark built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea and everything about him was beautiful except his jaws.

His back was as blue as a sword fish's and his belly was silver and his hide was smooth and handsome.

He was built as a sword fish except for his huge jaws which were tight shut now as he swam fast, just under the surface with his high dorsal fin knifing through the water without wavering.

Inside the closed double lip of his jaws all of his eight rows of teeth were slanted inwards.

They were not the ordinary pyramid-shaped teeth of most sharks.

They were shaped like a man's fingers when they are crisped like claws.

They were nearly as long as the fingers of the old man and they had razor-sharp cutting edges on both sides.

This was a fish built to feed on all the fishes in the sea, that were so fast and strong and well armed that they had no other enemy.

Now he speeded up as he smelled the fresher scent and his blue dorsal fin cut the water.

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