But you enjoyed killing the dentuso,he thought.He lives on the live fish as you do.He is not a scavenger nor just a moving appetite as some sharks are.He is beautiful and noble and knows no fear of anything.
The breeze was steady.It had backed a little further into the northeast and he knew that meant that it would not fall off.The old man looked ahead of him but he could see no sails nor could he see the hull nor the smoke of any ship. There were only the flying fish that went up from his bow sailing away to either side and the yellow patches of gulf-weed.He could not even see a bird.
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.
He did not need a compass to tell him where southwest was. He only needed the feel of the trade wind and the drawing of the sail.I better put a small line out with a spoon on it and try and get something to eat and drink for the moisture .But he could not find a spoon and his sardines were rotten.So he hooked a patch of yellow gulf weed with the gaff as they passed and shook it so that the small shrimps that were in it fell onto the planking of the skiff.There were more than a dozen of them and they jumped and kicked like sand fleas.The old man pinched their heads off with his thumb and forefinger and ate them chewing up the shells and the tails. They were very tiny but he knew they were nourishing and they tasted good.