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.

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