The breeze was fresh now and he sailed on well. He watched only the forward part of the fish and some of his hope returned.
“Ay,”he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily,feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.
“They must have taken a quarter of him and of the best meat,”he said aloud.“I wish it were a dream and that I had never hooked him.I'm sorry about it,fish.It makes everything wrong.”He stopped and he did not want to look at the fish now.Drained of blood and awash he looked the color of the silver backing of a mirror and his stripes still showed.
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.
He knew quite well the pattern of what could happen when he reached the inner part of the current.But there was nothing to be done now.