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time the moon was overhead he was asleep, snoring. He was without a worry.
    I was too tired to sleep and afraid that we would run ashore, either on Santa Cruz Island or the coast. I was not sure where we were. We seemed to be following along the kelp bed that rimmed the island, but I could be wrong. The sea is not a good place to be when you are tired and hungry and worried. At no time is it a place to do foolish things.
    At the first false dawn, a pearly gray in the east, I was aware that we were no longer moving. We were, as I had thought, near the kelp beds. The line was slack as if it had been broken. At some time during the night I could have fallen asleep and the fish could have broken free.
    I began to take in the line, cautiously at first, and then hand over hand. As it came in I coiled it carefully in the big barrel. Mando lay in the bow, one hand trailing in the water, asleep as if he had never slept before.

    The sun was up by the time that I caught sight of the big fish. He was about five boat lengths away and scarcely moving. Only his tail moved and very slowly. The way the rising sun slanted he was in the shadow of the boat, but I could see that he was about three arm's lengths away. My hands still bled and I guided the fish up to us, not forcing him. I crouched in the bottom of the boat, keeping out of sight, and making as few movements as possible.
    I had the line wrapped around my left wrist as I brought him up, a foot at a time, putting my knees on the line as each strip came in. The sun was in Mando's face, but he did not move. He had a wonderful look as if he were listening to some heavenly music. All I could hear was the surf beating against the shore and then the sounds of the waves washing back from the cliffs and caves.
    The big fish was not a pez espada, as Mando had thought it to be. His bill was a round spear, very long, and curved upward a little. His back was a purple blue and light blue bands ran from his back to his undersides, which were silver. I had seen marlin before and this was a marlin, a big one, the size of three large men and almost as long as the boat.
    The fish stopped and I held the line softly, not moving, trying not to breathe. The hook was there in his lower jaw and looked solid. He came forward so that his pointed bill was even with the bow of the boat. His tail was barely moving. The big fin on his back caught the sun and showed violet and blue spots.

    I crouched, watching him. His eyes moved, looking up at the boat and then at me. They were immense and once they had found me they did not shift away. In the sun they looked golden, but they were of different colors, some of the colors that were on his back.
    His gaze did not move from me. It was strange to look into the eyes of a fish that looked back at you. It seemed to me, as I crouched there, that in his mind he knew that I was the cause of the hook in his mouth and the long fight through the day and the dark. And yet I saw no hatred in them. Only a sort of wonderment and surprise and besides all a look of submission.
    Mando was sleeping, fighting off a cloud of gnats, but still in his sleep. I was close enough to him to touch his outstretched foot with mine. I thought of waking him, but feared that he would jump and arouse the fish into a last effort to free itself.
    The harpoon and a gaff made of a long bamboo rod and iron lay within my reach. I could use either one. Or if I thought and planned carefully I would be able to use both on the great fish.

    He was now even with the boat, leaning against it as if to rest. I could not see the marlin's eyes any longer. Only his purple back and the blue bands running down his sides. But I remembered his eyes and their look of surprise and submission. I could think of nothing else but his eyes looking at me.
    Mando was asleep on his side. Leaning forward, I slipped his long knife from its sheath. I unloosed the line from my wrist and set it down squarely on the gunwale. The knife