Although in his lifetime, Santiago twice caught fish weighing a thousand pounds, he never did so alone and out of sight of land. He realizes he is now "fast to the biggest fish that he had ever seen and bigger than he had ever heard of" and that his hand surely will uncramp because his two hands and the fish and are brothers. Santiago wonders if the fish jumped to show itself to him. He wishes he could show himself to the fish but then decides that if the fish thinks Santiago is more man than he is, he will be so. Santiago momentarily wishes he were the fish, which has so much going for it against his intelligence and will. Although he is not religious, Santiago promises to say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys and to make a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Cobre if he catches the marlin. He begins saying his prayers quickly and automatically. Afterwards, he feels better but is suffering just as much.
Santiago decides to rebait the other line in case he needs something more to eat. He's also running out of water. He doesn't think he'll be able to catch anything but a dolphin, though he wishes for a flying fish, which is excellent raw. Santiago thinks that he will kill this great fish, even though doing so is unjust, and show it "what a man can do and what a man endures." He also reminds himself that he told Manolin he was a strange old man and so now must prove it, though he has proven it a thousand times before.
