The Drums of Jeopardy - Page 8/202

An inspiration brought the affair to an end. Hawksley snatched up the

bedclothes and threw them as the ancient retiarius threw his net. He

managed to win to the lower platform of the fire escape before Quasimodo

emerged.

There was a fourteen-foot drop to the street, and the man with the

golden stubble on his chin and cheeks swung for a moment to gauge his

landing. Quasimodo came after with the agility of an ape. The race down

the street began with about a hundred yards in between.

Down the hill they went, like phantoms. The distance did not widen.

Bears will run amazingly fast and for a long while. The quarry cut into

Pearl Street for a block, turned a corner, and soon vaguely espied the

Hudson River. He made for this.

To the mind of Quasimodo this flight had but one significance--he was

dealing with an arrant coward; and he based his subsequent acts upon

this premise, forgetting that brave men run when need says must. It

would have surprised him exceedingly to learn that he was not driving,

that he was being led. Hawksley wanted his enemy alone, where no one

would see to interfere. Red torches and hobnailed boots! For once the

two bloods, always more or less at war, merged in a common purpose--to

kill this beast, to grind the face of him into pulp! Red torches and

hobnailed boots!

Presently one of the huge passenger boats, moored for the winter, loomed

up through the fog; and toward this Hawksley directed his steps. He made

a flying leap aboard and vanished round the deckhouse to the river side.

Quasimodo laughed as he followed. It was as if the tobacco pouch and

the appraiser's receipt were in his own pocket; and broad rivers made

capital graveyards. They two alone in the fog! He whirled round the

deckhouse--and backed on his heels to get his balance. Directly in

front, in a very understandable pose, was the intended victim, his jaw

jutting, his eyelids narrowed.

Quasimodo tried desperately to reach for his pistol; but a bolt of

lightning stopped the action. There is something peculiar about a blow

on the nose, a good blow. The Anglo-Saxon peoples alone possess the

counterattack--a rush. To other peoples concentration of thought is

impossible after the impact. Instinctively Quasimodo's hands flew to his

face. He heard a laugh, mirthless and terrible. Before he could drop

his hands from his face-blows, short and boring, from this side and from

that, over and under. The squat man was brave enough; simply he did not

know how to fight in this manner. He was accustomed to the use of steel

and the hobnails on his boots. He struck wildly, swinging his arms like

a Flemish mill in a brisk wind.