ALBACORA 35 



marlin, I felt sympathy for anyone who might be loll- 

 ing in the stern of the boat. I remembered the red eye 

 and the enormous bill quite clearly. Fortunately, no one 

 else came away with quite the same memory, because 

 my marlin changed his course enough so that the run 

 carried him across the wake of the big boat but did not 

 bring him very close to the stern. Still, even this was no 

 bargain. Lou had a line out from the boat with a fresh 

 marlin hooked onto it. As my fish plunged across the 

 wake of the Explorer it seemed inevitable that he would 

 tie Lou's line and mine into a whole series of knots. 



"He'll shoot us, Walt," I shouted, as we were 

 dragged past the stern of the Explorer. "If we tangle 

 his line, we'll be shot." 



"He'll gaff us," Walt said. "I don't think he has a 

 gun." 



We both waited for the momentary tug on my line 

 that would herald the snarling of lines. 



"I suppose we can swim for it," I said. 



"Sure," Walt said. "Lou will forget about the whole 

 thing in a year or so." 



Fortunately, this was a miserable day for marlin. 

 I'm not the smallest target in the world, but two of them 

 had missed me so far. Now, my marlin and Lou's marlin 

 failed to get together on their signals. After we had 

 waited for more than a minute, both Walt and I felt 

 free to exhale. We were not tangled with Lou's line 

 after all. Back and forth my marlin dragged the WaWa, 



