eness.Each line,as thick around as a big pencil,was looped onto a green-sapped stick so that any pull or touch on the bait would make the stick dip and each line had two forty-fathom coils which could be made fast to the other spare coils so that,if it were necessary,a fish could take out over three 混dred fathoms of line.
Now the man watched the dip of the three sticks over the side of the skiff and rowed gently to keep the lines straight up and down and at their proper depths.It was quite light and any 摸ment now the sun would rise.
The sun rose thinly from the sea and the old man could see the other boats,low on the water and well in toward the shore,spread out across the current.Then the sun was brighter and the gre came on the water and then,as it rose clear,the ft sea sent it back at his eyes so that it hurt sharply and he rowed without looking into it.He looked down into the water and watched the lines that went straight down into the dark of the water.He kept them straighter than anyone did,so that at each level in the darkness of the stream there would be a bait wai挺 exactly where he wished it to be for any fish that swam there.Others let them drift with the current and sometimes they were at sixty fathoms when the fishermen thought they were at a 混dred.
But,he thought,I keep them with precision.Only I have no 露ck any 摸re.But who knows?Maybe to day.Every day is a new day.It is better to be 露cky.But I would rather be exact.Then when 露ck comes you are ready.
The sun was two hours higher now and it did not hurt his eyes so much to look into the east.There were only three boats in sight now and they showed very low and far inshore.
All my life the early sun has hurt my eyes,he thought. Yet they are still good. In the evening I can look straight into it without get挺 the bckness.It has 摸re force in the evening too.But in the 摸rning it is painful.
Just then he saw a man-of-war bird with his long bck wings circling in the sky ahead of him. He made a quick drop,sn挺 down on his backswept wings,and then circled again.
“He's got something,”the old man said aloud.“He's not just looking.”
He rowed slowly and steadily toward where the bird was circling.He did not hurry and he kept his lines straight up and down.But he crowded the current a little so that he was still fishing correctly though faster than he would have fished if he was not trying to use the bird.
The bird went higher in the air and circled again,his wings 摸tionless.Then he dove suddenly and the old man saw flying fish spurt out of the water and sail desperately over the surface.
“Dolphin,”the old man said aloud.“ Big dolphin.”
He shipped his oars and brought a small line from under the bow.It had a wire leader and a medium-sized hook and he baited it with one of the sardines.He let it go over the side and then made it fast to a ring bolt in the stern.Then he baited another line and left it coiled in the shade of the bow. He went back to rowing and to watching the long winged bck bird who was working,now,low over the water.
As he watched the bird dipped again sn挺 his wings for the dive and then swinging them wildly and ineffectually as he followed the flying fish. The old man could see the slight bulge in the water that the big dolphin raised as they followed the escaping fish.The dolphin were cut挺 through the water below the flight of the fish and would be in the water,driving at speed,when the fish dropped.It is a big school of dolphin,he thought.They are wide spread and the flying fish have little chance.The bird has no chance.The flying fish are too big for him an
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