第10章 The Old Mans Return[第1页/共7页]

“Tell him how sorry I am.”

“You keep it if you want it.”

Inside the shack he leaned the mast against the wall.In the dark he found a water bottle and took a drink.Then he lay down on the bed.He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and then over his back and legs and he slept face down on the newspapers with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up.

He knew he was beaten now finally and without remedy and he went back to the stern and found the jagged end of the tiller would fit in the slot of the rudder well enough for him to steer.He settled the sack around his shoulders and put the skiff on her course. He sailed lightly now and he had no thoughts nor any feelings of any kind.He was past everything now and he sailed the skiff to make his home port as well and as intelligently as he could.In the night sharks hit the carcass as someone might pick up crumbs from the table.The old man paid no attention to them and did not pay any attention to anything except steering.He only noticed how lightly and how well the skiff sailed now there was no great weight beside her.

“One on the first day. One the second and two the third.”

That afternoon there was a party of tourists at the Terrace and looking down in the water among the empty beer cans and dead barracudas a woman saw a great long white spine with a huge tail at the end that lifted and swung with the tide while the east wind blew a heavy steady sea outside the entrance to the harbor.