Before he could recover his feet, he had caught some great scratches on his face and several severe bites on his legs and arms.

But as he scrambled to get up, his hand fell upon his pickaxe, and before the horrid beasts could do him any serious harm, he was laying about with it right and left in the dark.
The hideous cries which followed gave him the satisfaction of knowing that he had punished some of them pretty smartly for their rudeness, and by their scampering and their retreating howls, he perceived that he had routed them.

He stood for a little, weighing his battle-axe in his hand as if it had been the most precious lump of metal--but indeed no lump of gold itself could have been so precious at the time as that common tool--then untied the end of the string from it, put the ball in his pocket, and still stood thinking.

It was clear that the cobs' creatures had found his axe, had between them carried it off, and had so led him he knew not where.

But for all his thinking he could not tell what he ought to do, until suddenly he became aware of a glimmer of light in the distance.