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.