For eighty four days old Santiago had not caught a single fish. At first a young boy, Manolin, had shared his bad fortune, but after the fortieth luckless day the boy's father told his son to go in another boat. From that time on, Santiago worked alone. The boy loved the old fisherman and always helped him with money and food. Usually, they would talk about the fish they had taken in luckier times or about American baseball after supper, while at night, alone in his cottage, Santiago dreamed of lions on the beaches of Africa, where he had gone years before. _  On the eighty-fifth day, Santiago set off to fish before dawn. Two of his baits  were fresh tunas  the boy had given him, as well as sardines  to cover his hooks. Then he set his lines which went straight down into deep dark water. As the sun rose he saw other boats in toward shore. A bird showed him where dolphins were chasing some flying fish. This time Santiago saw tuna jumping in the sunlight. A small one took the hook on his line. Pulling the fish aboard, the old man thought it a good fortune. Toward noon a marlin, a common fish in the sea, started eating the bait which was one hundred meters down. Gently the old man played the fish, a big one, as he knew from the weight on the line. At last he struck to settle the hook. The fish did not come out of the surface. Instead, it began to pull the boat to the northwest. The old man followed it. _  It was cold after the sunset. When something took one of his remaining baits, he cut the line with his knife. Once the marlin leaned suddenly, pulling Santiago forward on his face and cutting his cheek. By dawn his left hand was cramped . The fish had headed northward; there was no land in sight. Hungry, he cut pieces from the tuna and chewed them slowly. That morning the fish jumped. Seeing it, Santiago knew he had hooked the biggest marlin he had ever seen. Then the fish went down and turned toward the east. Santiago drank a little water from the bottle during the hot afternoon. Close to nightfall a dolphin took the small hook he had rebaited. He lifted it aboard, careful. After he had rested, he cut meat from the dolphin and kept also the two flying fish he found in its stomach. That night he slept. He awoke to feel the line running through his fingers as the fish jumped. Feeding line slowly, he tried to tire the marlin. After the fish slowed its run, he washed his cut hands in sea water and ate one of the flying fish. At sunrise the marlin began to circle. Faint, he worked to bring the big fish nearer with each turn. _ The fish was two feet longer than the boat. No fish like it had ever been seen in Havana harbor. An hour later, he sighted the first shark, a fierce Mako, and it came in fast to chase after the dead marlin. The old man struck the shark with his harpoon. The Mako rolled and sank, carrying the harpoon with it and leaving the marlin bloody. He knew the smell would spread. Watching, he saw two sharks closing in. He struck at one with his knife and watched it sliding down into deep water. The other he killed while it tore at the flesh of the marlin. When the third appeared, he thrust  it with the knife. The other sharks came at sunset. At first he tried to beat them with the tiller  from the boat, but his hands were bleeding and there were too many in the sea. In the darkness, as he steered toward the harbor of Havana, he heard them hitting the boat again and again. But the old man thought only of his steering and his great tiredness. He had gone out too far and the sharks had beaten him. He knew they would leave him nothing but the stripped skeleton of the big marlin. All lights were out when he sailed into the little harbor and beached his boat. He could just make out the white backbone and the upstanding tail of the fish. _ In his cottage he fell on his bed and went to sleep. Why did the man feel that he could be lucky this time?
Because a small tuna took the hook on his line. Because he dreamed about the American lions. Because he saw many flying fish were chased by the dolphins. Because a lot of sharks followed his boat.