There was a moment of stillness. Then de Gex began hopping round into a new position: he’d been ready for a leap into the percussion section, and now needed to make a lunge for Jack’s heart. He had nearly gotten ready when Handel, standing below him in the pit, tossed his staff straight up, caught the end of it in both hands, and swung it round in a mighty hay-maker, catching one of de Gex’s shins with such violence that the blood-slick foot was knocked back and off the edge of the stage. The rest of de Gex shortly followed. He made a flailing backwards fall into a kettledrum. One leg and an arm—his sword-arm—ruptured the drumhead and ended up beneath him in the immense copper kettle. The other limbs sprawled over its rim like claws of a lobster that does not wish to be cooked.