This is the second day now that I do not know the result of the juegos,he thought.But I must have confidence and I must be worthy of the great DiMaggio who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone spur in his heel. What is a bone spur?He asked himself.Un espuela de hueso. We do not have them.Can it be as painful as the spur of a fighting cock in one's heel?I do not think I could endure that or the loss of the eye and of both eyes and continue to fight as the fighting cocks do.Man is not much beside the great birds and beasts.Still I would rather be that beast down there in the darkness of the sea.
The sun and his steady movement of his fingers had uncramped his left hand now completely and he began to shift more of the strain to it and he shrugged the muscles of his back to shift the hurt of the cord a little.
“But you have not slept yet,old man,”he said aloud.“ It is half a day and a night and now another day and you have not slept.You must devise a way so that you sleep a little if he is quiet and steady.If you do not sleep you might become unclear in the head.”
Back in the stern he turned so that his left hand held the strain of the line across his shoulders and drew his knife from its sheath with his right hand.The stars were bright now and he saw the dolphin clearly and he pushed the blade of his knife into his head and drew him out from under the stern.He put one of his feet on the fish and slit him quickly from the vent up to the tip of his lower jaw.Then he put his knife down and gutted him with his right hand,scooping him clean and pulling the gills clear.He felt the maw heavy and slippery in his hands and he slit it open.There were two flying fish inside.They were fresh and hard and he laid them side by side and dropped the guts and the gills over the stern. They sank leaving a trail of phosphorescence in the water. The dolphin was cold and a leprous gray-white now in the starlight and the old man skinned one side of him while he held his right foot on the fish's head.Then he turned him over and skinned the other side and cut each side off from the head down to the tail.