The Drums of Jeopardy | Page 8

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.
Some of his blows got home, but these provoked only sardonic
laughter.
Wild with rage and pain he bored in. He had but one chance - to get this
shadow in his gorilla-like arms. He lacked mental flexibility. An idea,

getting into his head, stuck; it was not adjustable. Like an arrow sped
from the bowstring, it had to fulfill its destiny. It never occurred to him
to take to his heels, to get space between himself and this enemy he had
so woefully underestimated. Ten feet, and he might have been able to
whirl, draw his pistol, and end the affair.
The coup de grace came suddenly: a blow that caught Quasimodo full
on the point of the jaw. He sagged and went sprawling upon his face.
The victor turned him over and raised a heel.... No! He was neither
Prussian nor Sudanese black. He was white; and white men did not
stamp in the faces of fallen enemies.
But there was one thing a white man might do in such a case without
disturbing the ethical, and he proceeded about it forthwith: Draw the
devil's fangs; render him impotent for a few hours. He deliberately
knelt on one of the outspread arms and calmly emptied the insensible
man's pockets. He took everything - watch, money, passport, letters,
pistol, keys - rose and dropped them into the river. He overlooked
Quasimodo's belt, however. The Anglo-Saxon idea was top hole. His
fists had saved his life.
CHAPTER m
Hawksley heard the panting of an engine and turned his head. Dimly he
saw a giant bridge and a long drab train moving across it. He picked up
the fallen man's cap and tried it on. Not a particularly good fit, but it
would serve. He then trotted round the deckhouse to the street side,
jumped to the wharf, and sucking the cracked knuckles of his right
hand fell into a steady dogtrot which carried him to the station he had
left so hopefully an hour and a half gone.
An accommodation train eventually deposited him in Poughkeepsie,
where he purchased a cap and a sturdy walking stick. The stubble on
his chin and cheeks began to irritate him intensely, but he could not rid
himself of the idea that a barber's chair would be inviting danger. He
was now tolerably certain that from one end of the continent to the
other his presence was known. His life and his property, they would be

after both. Even now there might be men in this strange town seeking
him. The closer he got to New York, the more active and wide-awake
they would become.
He walked the streets, his glance constantly roving. But apparently no
one paid the least attention to him. Finally he returned to the railway
station; and at six o'clock that evening he left the platform of the 125th
Street Station, and appraised covertly the men who accompanied him to
the street. He felt assured that they were all Americans. Probably they
were; but there are still some stray fools of American birth who cannot
accept the great American doctrine as the only Ararat visible in this
present flood. Perhaps one of these accompanied Hawksley to the street.
Whatever he was, one had upon order met every south-going train since
seven o'clock that morning, when Quasimodo, paying from the gold
hidden in his belt, had sent forth the telegraphic alarm. The man hurried
across the street and followed Hawksley by matching his steps. His
business was merely to learn the other's destination and then to report.