another till in a moment the farthest in the crowd had evidently
heard and understood it. They began to gather about him in a way he
did not relish, and he retreated towards the wall. They pressed upon
him.

'Stand back,' said Curdie, grasping his pickaxe tighter by his knee.

They only grinned and pressed closer. Curdie bethought himself and
began to rhyme.

'Ten, twenty, thirty--
You're all so very dirty!
Twenty, thirty, forty--
You're all so thick and snorty!
'Thirty, forty, fifty--
You're all so puff-and-snifty!
Forty, fifty, sixty--
Beast and man so mixty!

'Fifty, sixty, seventy--
Mixty, maxty, leaventy!
Sixty, seventy, eighty--
All your cheeks so slaty!

'Seventy, eighty, ninety,
All your hands so flinty!
Eighty, ninety, hundred,
Altogether dundred!'

The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible
grimaces all through the rhyme, as if eating something so disagreeable
that it set their teeth on edge and gave them the creeps; but whether
it was that the rhyming words were most of them no words at all, for, a
new rhyme being considered the more efficacious, Curdie had made it on
the spur of the moment, or whether it was that the presence of the king
and queen gave them courage, I cannot tell; but the moment the rhyme
was over they crowded on him again, and out shot a hundred long arms,
with a multitude of thick nailless fingers at the ends of them, to lay
hold upon him. Then Curdie heaved up his axe. But being as gentle as
courageous and not wishing to kill any of them, he turned the end which
was square and blunt like a hammer, and with that came down a great
blow on the head of the goblin nearest him. Hard as the heads of all
goblins are, he thought he must feel that. And so he did, no doubt;
but he only gave a horrible cry, and sprung at Curdie's throat.
Curdie, however, drew back in time, and just at that critical moment
remembered the vulnerable part of the goblin body. He made a sudden
rush at the king and stamped with all his might on His Majesty's feet.
The king gave a most unkingly howl and almost fell into the fire.
Curdie then rushed into the crowd, stamping right and left. The
goblins drew back, howling on every side as he approached, but they
were so crowded that few of those he attacked could escape his tread;
and the shrieking and roaring that filled the cave would have appalled
Curdie but for the good hope it gave him. They