「そのうちに僕は飛び立つが早いか、岩の上の河童へ躍りかかりました。同時に又河童も逃げ出しました」
So my question is about the meaning of this か in 「飛び立つが早いか」
I've always thought か means something like "I think", as expressing uncertainty when appears in this kind of situations, but I'm not totally sure.
Another quick question: is there a difference between 飛び立つが早い and 飛び立つのが早い? From what I learned, you put の after a verb in the dictionary form to nominalize it, but in this case there is no の here.
This か is indeed a question marker. It expresses uncertainty regarding whether 飛び立つ happened sooner than 躍りかかる. In practice, you can think of this as a set expression suggesting the two actions happened almost at the same time.
そのうちに僕は飛び立つが早いか、岩の上の河童へ躍りかかりました。
Then, no sooner did I take off than I charged at the kappa on the rock.
飛び立つが and 飛び立つのが are interchangeable in this context. This is because が早いか is almost a set expression, and old phrases often employ some classical grammar. In classical Japanese, instead of の, people used the attributive form of a verb to nominalize a verb. See:
