第8章 The Sharks Attack[第1页/共15页]

“Now,”he said.“I am still an old man.But I am not unarmed.”

He was a fish to keep a man all winter,he thought.Don't think of that.Just rest and try to get your hands in shape to defend what is left of him.The blood smell from my hands means nothing now with all that scent in the water.Besides they do not bleed much.There is nothing cut that means anything.The bleeding may keep the left from cramping.

The shark swung over and the old man saw his eye was not alive and then he swung over once again,wrapping himself in two loops of the rope.The old man knew that he was dead but the shark would not accept it.Then,on his back,with his tail lashing and his jaws clicking,the shark plowed over the water as a speed-boat does.The water was white where his tail beat it and three-quarters of his body was clear above the water when the rope came taut ,shivered, and then snapped.The shark lay quietly for a little while on the surface and the old man watched him. Then he went down very slowly.

“I killed him in self-defense,”the old man said aloud.“And I killed him well.”

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.