but saw nothing of the people of the house until he came to the great
hall, in which, the moment he entered it, arose a great goblin shout.
The last of the men-at-arms, the captain himself, was on the floor,
buried beneath a wallowing crowd of goblins. For, while each knight
was
busy defending himself as well as he could, by stabs in the thick bodies
of the goblins, for he had soon found their heads all but invulnerable,
the queen had attacked his legs and feet with her horrible granite shoe,
and he was soon down; but the captain had got his back to the wall and
stood out longer. The goblins would have torn them all to pieces, but
the king had given orders to carry them away alive, and over each of
them, in twelve groups, was standing a knot of goblins, while as many
as
could find room were sitting upon their prostrate bodies.
Curdie burst in dancing and gyrating and stamping and singing like a
small incarnate whirlwind,
"Where 'tis all a hole, sir,
Never can be holes:
Why should their shoes have soles, sir,
When they've got no souls?
Madhuri Noah
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