She trusted in her shoes: they were of granite--hollowed like French sabots.

Curdie would have endured much rather than hurt a woman, even if she was a goblin; but here was an affair of life and death: forgetting her shoes, he made a great stamp on one of her feet.

But she instantly returned it with very different effect, causing him frightful pain, and almost disabling him.

His only chance with her would have been to attack the granite shoes with his pickaxe, but before he could think of that she had caught him up in her arms and was rushing with him across the cave.

She dashed him into a hole in the wall, with a force that almost stunned him.