The sun was hot now although the breeze was rising gently.

“He has slowed much,”he said.

After it is light,he thought,I will work back to the forty-fathom bait and cut it away too and link up the reserve coils. I will have lost two hundred fathoms of good Catalan cordel and the hooks and leaders.That can be replaced .But who replaces this fish if I hook some fish and it cuts him off?I don't know what that fish was that took the bait just now.It could have been a marlin or a broadbill or a shark.I never felt him.I had to get rid of him too fast.

Just then the fish gave a sudden lurch that pulled the old man down onto the bow and would have pulled him overboard if he had not braced himself and given some line.

He tried to increase the tension,but the line had been taut up to the very edge of the breaking point since he had hooked the fish and he felt the harshness as he leaned back to pull and knew he could put no more strain on it.I must not jerk it ever,he thought.Each jerk widens the cut the hook makes and then when he does jump he might throw it. Anyway I feel better with the sun and for once I do not have to look into it.