The blow hurt not only his hands but his shoulder too.
But the shark came up fast with his head out and the old man hit him squarely in the center of his flat-topped head as his nose came out of water and lay against the fish.
The old man withdrew the blade and punched the shark exactly in the same spot again.
He still hung to the fish with his jaws hooked and the old man stabbed him in his left eye.
The shark still hung there.
"No?" the old man said and he drove the blade between the vertebrae and the brain.
It was an easy shot now and he felt the cartilage sever.
The old man reversed the oar and put the blade between the shark's jaws to open them.
He twisted the blade and as the shark slid loose he said, "Go on, galano.
Slide down a mile deep.