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'Where 'tis all a hole, sir,
Never can be holes:
Why should their shoes have soles, sir,
When they've got no souls?
'But she upon her foot, sir,
Has a granite shoe:
The strongest leather boot, sir,
Six would soon be through.'
The queen gave a howl of rage and dismay; and before she recovered
her presence of mind, Curdie, having begun with the group nearest
him, had eleven of the knights on their legs again.
'Stamp on their feet!' he cried as each man rose, and in a few
minutes the hall was nearly empty, the goblins running from it as
fast as they could, howling and shrieking and limping, and cowering
every now and then as they ran to cuddle their wounded feet in
their hard hands, or to protect them from the frightful stamp-stamp
of the armed men.
And now Curdie approached the group which, in trusting in the queen
and her shoe, kept their guard over the prostrate captain. The
king sat on the captain's head, but the queen stood in front, like
an infuriated cat, with her perpendicular eyes gleaming green, and
her hair standing half up from her horrid head. Her heart was
quaking, however, and she kept moving about her skin-shod foot with
nervous apprehension. When Curdie was within a few paces, she
rushed at him, made one tremendous stamp at his opposing foot,
which happily he withdrew in time, and caught him round the waist,
to dash him on the marble floor. But just as she caught him, he
came down with all the weight of his iron-shod shoe upon her
skin-shod foot, and with a hideous howl she dropped him, squatted
on the floor, and took her foot in both her hands. Meanwhile the
rest rushed on the king and the bodyguard, sent them flying, and
lifted the prostrate captain, who was all but pressed to death. It
was some moments before he recovered breath and consciousness.
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