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'Old man...'

You are killing me, fish, the old man thought. But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother. Come on and kill me. I do not care who kills who. 

 He did not truly feel good because the pain from the cord across his back had almost passed pain and gone into a dullness that he mistrusted.

 Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty. 

 He could see the fish and he had only to look at his hands and feel his back against the stern to know that this had truly happened and was not a dream. 

  “Go on, galano. Slide down a mile deep. Go see your friend, or maybe it’s your mother.”

The boy saw that the old man was breathing and then he saw the old man's hands and he started to cry.

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