Where were Gandalf and Hannah? Of that neither the Dwarves and Bilbo nor the Goblins had any idea, and the Goblins did not wait to find out. It was deep, deep, dark, such as only Goblins that have taken to living in the heart of the mountains can see through. The passages there were crossed and tangled in all directions, but the Goblins knew their way, as well as you do to the nearest post-office; and the way went down and down, and it was horribly stuffy. The goblins were very rough, and pinched unmercifully, and chuckled and laughed in their horrible stony voices; and Bilbo was more unhappy even than when the troll had picked him up by his toes. He wished again and again for his nice hobbit-hole. Not for the last time.
Now there came a glimmer red of light before them. The Goblins began to sing, or croak, keeping time with the flap of their feet on the stone, and shaking their prisoners as well.
Clap! Snap! the black crack!
Grib, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down, down to Goblin-town
You go, my lad!
Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, down underground!
Ho, ho! my lad!
Swish, smack! Whip crack!
Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!
Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,
While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,
Round and round far underground
Below, my lad!
It sounded truly terrifying. The walls echoed to the clap, snap! And the crush, smash! And to the ugly laughter of their ho, ho! my lad! The general meaning of the song was only too plain; for now the Goblins took out whips and whipped them with a swish, smack!, and set them running as fast as they could in front of them; and more than one of the Dwarves were already yammering and bleating like anything, when they stumbled into a big cavern.
It was lit by a great red fire in the middle, and by torches along the walls, and it was full of Goblins. They all laughed and stamped and clapped their hands, when the Dwarves (with poor little Bilbo at the back and nearest to the whips) came running in, while the goblin-drivers whooped and cracked their whips behind. The ponies were already huddled in a corner; and there were all the baggages and packages lying broken open, and being rummaged by goblins, and smelt by goblins, and fingered by goblins, and quarreled over by goblins.
I am afraid that was the last they ever saw of those excellent little ponies, including the jolly sturdy little fellow that Elrond had leant to Gandalf, since a horse was not suitable for the mountain-paths. For Goblins eat horses and ponies and donkeys (and other much more dreadful things), and they are always hungry. Just now however the prisoners were thinking only of themselves. The Goblins chained their hands behind their backs and linked them all together in a line and dragged them to the far end of the cavern with Bilbo tugging at the end of the row.
There in the shadows on a large flat stone, surrounded by piled up skulls and trophies form enemies to make a throne, sat a tremendous Goblin with a huge head and an equally large goiter, and armed Goblins were standing round him carrying the axes and bent swords that they use. Now Goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled Dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually very untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves have to work till they die for want of air and light. They did not hate Dwarves especially, no more than they hated everybody and everything, and particularly the orderly and prosperous; in some parts wicked Dwarves had even made alliances with them. Anyway, Goblins don't care who they catch, as long as it is done smart and secret, and the prisoners are not able to defend themselves.
"Who are these miserable persons?" said the Great Goblin. "Spies? Thieves? Assassins?"
"Dwarves, and this, your Malevolence!" said one of the drivers, pulling at Bilbo's chain so that he fell forward onto his knees. "We found them sheltering on our Front Porch."
"What do you mean by it?" said the Great Goblin turning to Thorin. "Up to no good, I'll warrant! Well, don't just stand there! Search them! Every crack! Every crevice!" On Nori they found several artifacts of silver and gold.
"It is my belief, your Great Protuberance, that they are in league with Elves!" said one of the searchers, presenting his king with a silver candlestick.
"Made in Rivendell," read the Great Goblin upon inspecting its base. "Ah, Second Age. Couldn't give it away," he said, tossing it away carelessly. Upon hearing this, Bilbo and all the Dwarves stared at Nori in disbelief. They had quite obviously been nicked.
"Just a couple of keepsakes," Nori said defensively.
"What are you doing in these parts?" the Great Goblin demanded. Thorin moved to answer, but Óin placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Seeing as Thorin was being hunted by the orcs, it might not be a good idea for him to draw attention to himself in this den of iniquity.
"Uh, don't worry, lads. I'll handle this," said Óin as he stepped forth.
"No tricks! I want the truth," said the Great Goblin. "Warts and all."
"You're going to have to speak up. Your boys flattened my trumpet," said Óin, holding up his squashed hearing horn as evidence.
"I'll flatten more than your trumpet!" the Great Goblin snapped, angered by the dwarf's impertinence.
"If it's more information you want, then I'm the one you should speak to," Bofur said quickly, redirecting his attention before he hurt the older dwarf.
"Mm-hm?" said the Great Goblin, wanting to hear more.
"We were on the road. Well, it's not so much a road as a path. Actually, it's not even that, come to think of it. It's more like a track," said Bofur, not quite knowing what to say all at once in a moment, when obviously the exact truth would not do at all. "Anyway, the point is we were on this road, like a path, like a track. And then we weren't. Which is a problem, because we were supposed to be..."
"Shut up," the Great Goblin muttered, quickly tiring of his seemingly aimless rambling.
"... in Dunland last Tuesday," Bofur finished lamely.
"Visiting distant relations," Dori chimed in helpfully.
"Some inbreds on me mother's side," Bofur added.
"Shut up!" the Great Goblin shouted impatiently, deciding he had heard quite enough of their ridiculous excuses already. Bofur wisely shut his mouth this time.
"They are liars, O truly tremendous one!" said one of the drivers. "Several of our people were struck by lightning in the cave, when we invited these creatures to come below; and they are as dead as stones!"
"If they will not talk, we'll make them squawk! Bring up the Mangler! Bring up the Bone-breaker," ordered the Great Goblin. "Start with the youngest."
"Wait!" shouted Thorin.
"Well, well, well!" said the Great Goblin as the noble Dwarf stepped forward to face him. "Look who it is. Thorin son of Thráin, son of Thrór, King Under the Mountain. Oh, but I'm forgetting—you don't have a mountain, and you're not a king, which makes you nobody, really." Several goblins snickered mockingly. "Still, I know someone who would pay a pretty price for your head. Just a head; nothing attached," continued the Great Goblin with a wheezing cackle. "Perhaps you know of whom I speak. An old enemy of yours. A pale orc, astride a white warg."
"Azog the Defiler was destroyed," said Thorin sternly, not wanting to believe what he had just heard. "He was slain battle long ago." That villain should have died of the wounds he gave the orc for killing his grandfather.
"So you think his defiling days are done, do you?" sneered the Great Goblin with another cackle. "Send word to the pale orc," he ordered one of his messengers. "Tell him I have found his prize."
The little goblin coughed and cackled as he flew away on a wire to deliver his king's message, whizzing past the entrance to an old, disused tunnel just in time to miss Gandalf and Hannah as they silently crept out through the opening in the rock, keeping low and to the shadows, while the remaining goblins' attention was still focused on the dwarves.
There came suddenly from the goblin still inspecting the dwarves' belongings a terrible shriek as he dropped the sword Thorin had been carrying with a clatter, acting as though he had been burned.
The Great Goblin gave a truly awful howl of rage when he looked at it, and all his soldiers gnashed their teeth, clashed their shields, and stamped. They knew the sword at once. It had killed hundreds of goblins in its time, when the fair elves of Gondolin hunted them the hills or did battle before their walls. They had called it Orcrist, Goblin-cleaver, but the goblins called it simply Biter. They hated it and hated worse anyone who carried it.
"Murderers and elf-friends!" the Great Goblin shouted. "Slash them! Beat them! Bite them! Gnash them! Take them away to dark holes and never let them see the light again!" He was in such a rage that he jumped off his seat and himself rushed at Thorin with his mouth open. Gandalf and Hannah took that as their cue to act.
Gandalf raised his staff, and just at that moment all the lights in the cavern went out as Hannah chucked one of her larger homemade smoke bombs into the great fire. It went off poof! into a tower of blue glowing smoke, right up to the roof, that scattered piercing white sparks all among the goblins.
The yells and yammering, croaking, jabbering and jabbering; howls, growls, and curses; shrieking and skriking that followed were beyond description. Several hundred wild cats and wolves being roasted slowly alive together would not have compared with it. The sparks were burning holes in the goblins, and the smoke that now fell from the roof made the air too thick for even their eyes to see through. Soon they were falling over one another and rolling in heaps on the floor, biting and kicking and fighting as if they had all gone mad.
Suddenly a sword flashed in its own light. Bilbo saw it go right through the Great Goblin as he stood dumbfounded in the middle of the rage. He fell dead, and the goblin soldiers fled before the sword shrieking into the darkness.
The sword went back into its sheath. "Follow me, quick!" said a voice fierce and quiet; and before Bilbo understood what had happened he was trotting along again, as fast as he could trot, at the end of the line, down more dark passages with the yells of the goblins growing fainter behind him. A pale light was leading them on.
"Quicker, quicker!" said another softer, but no less urgent, voice. "The torches will soon be relit."
"Half a minute!" said Bofur, who was at the back next to Bilbo, and a decent fellow. He made the hobbit scramble onto his shoulders as best he could with his tied hands, and then off they all went at a run, with a clink of chains, and many a stumble, since they had no hands to steady themselves with. Not for a long while did they stop, and by that time they must have been right down in the very mountain's heart.
Then Gandalf lit up his wand. Of course it was Gandalf, and the second voice had clearly belonged to Hannah, whom they could now see was right beside him; but just then they were too busy to ask how the two of them had got there. The wizard took out his sword again, and again it flashed in the dark by itself. It burned with a rage that made it seem as if goblins were about; now it was bright as blue flame for delight in the killing of the great lord of the cave. It made no trouble whatever of cutting through the goblin-chains and setting all the prisoners free as quickly as possible. This sword's name was Glamdring the Foe-hammer, if you remember. The goblins just called it Beater, and hated it worse than Biter if possible. Orcrist, too, had been saved; for Gandalf had brought it along as well, snatching it from one of the terrified guards. Gandalf thought of most things; and though he could not do everything, he could do a great deal for friends in a tight corner.
"Are we all here?" said he, handing Thorin's sword back to him with a bow. "Let me see: one—that's Thorin; two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven; where are Fili and Kili? Here they are, twelve, thirteen—and here's Mr. Baggins: fourteen! Well, well! It might be worse, and then again it might be a good deal better. No ponies, and no food, and no knowing quite where we are, and hordes of angry goblins just behind! On we go!"
On they went. Gandalf was quite right: they began to hear goblin noises and horrible cries far behind in the passages they had come through. That sent them on faster than ever, and as poor Bilbo could not possibly go half as fast—for dwarves can roll along at a tremendous pace, I can tell you, when they have to—they took it in turn to carry him on their backs.
Still goblins go faster than dwarves, and these goblins knew the way better (they had made the paths themselves), and were madly angry; so that do what they could the dwarves heard the cries and howls getting closer and closer. Soon they could hear even the flap of the goblin feet, many many feet which seemed only just round the last corner. The blink of red torches could be seen behind them in the tunnel they were following; and they were getting deadly tired.
"Why, oh why did I ever leave my hobbit-hole!" said poor Bilbo bumping up and down on Bombur's back.
"Why, oh why did I ever bring a wretched little hobbit on a treasure hunt!" said poor Bombur, who was fat and staggered along with sweat dripping down his nose in his heat and terror.
At this point, Gandalf fell behind, and Hannah and Thorin with him. They turned a sharp corner. "About turn!" he shouted. "Draw your sword, Thorin! Loose your arrows, Hannah!"
There was nothing else to be done; and the goblins did not like it. They came scurrying round the corner in full cry, and found Goblin-cleaver and Foe-hammer shining cold and bright right in their astonished eyes as one arrow after another flew at them. The ones in front dropped their torches and gave one yell before they were killed. The ones behind yelled still more, and leaped back, knocking over those that were running after them. "Biter and Beater!" they shrieked; and soon they were all in confusion, and most of them were hustling back the way they had come.
It was quite a long while before any of then dared to turn that corner. By that time the dwarves had gone on again, a long, long, way on into the dark tunnels of the goblins' realm. When the goblins discovered that, they put out their torches and they slipped on soft shoes, and they chose out their very quickest runners with the sharpest eyes and ears. These ran forward, as swift as weasels in the dark, and with hardly any more noise than bats.
That is why neither Bilbo, nor the Dwarves, nor Hannah, nor even Gandalf heard them coming. Nor did they seem them. But they were seen by the goblins that ran up silently behind, for Gandalf was letting his wand give out a faint light to help the dwarves as they went along.
Quite suddenly Dori, now at the back carrying Bilbo, was grabbed from behind in the dark. He shouted and fell; and the hobbit rolled off his shoulders into the blackness, bumped his head on a hard rock, and lost consciousness as he disappeared into the dark. Meanwhile, Dori, unsure of the hobbit's fate but faced with certain danger in the form of the goblin currently attacking him. Hearing Dori cry out, the others immediately turned and doubled back to save him. Hannah quickly shot Dori's attacker before he could stab him, and Gandalf and Thorin slew the next wave of goblins. Everyone did their best to fight off the sudden onslaught as the rest of the goblins caught up to the scouts they had sent ahead, but what really saved them was actually the moment when Hannah found that she had run out of arrows and resorted to using a homemade flash grenade, hoping a sudden flash of light might scare the goblins off with the way they had reacted to the sparks from her smoke bomb.
"Fire in the hole!" she yelled as she pulled its pin and threw it amongst the horde of goblins scrambling towards them. The dwarves, not knowing what sort of weapon she might have thrown did their best to get out of the way and duck for cover as the grenade went off with a bang, lighting up the whole tunnel with a blinding flash of white light that made the goblins screech and howl and curse fiercely as they made another hasty retreat.
"Follow me, everybody!" Gandalf shouted, rousing the stunned dwarves. Once again, the company ran along the dark path with all the speed they could muster. They had no doubt the goblins would be back once they had recovered.
They were doing well until they reached a rickety wooden bridge that had been made to form a crossing over a deep ravine. In their rush to get away, they had not bothered to stop and test how much of a load it could bear, and once Bombur stepped aboard, the company's combined weight sent the weakened section of the span they were on crashing down. The Dwarves and Hannah all gave cries and shouts of fear and alarm as they hurtled towards the ground below, clinging to the wooden planks as the ends of the bridge battered and scraped against the walls of the narrowing ravine. It was a rough landing, and there was very little bridge left by the end, but fortunately for them, it had slowed their descent enough so that they were able to survive without sustaining wounds any more serious than some nasty bumps and bruises.
"Well, that could have been worse," Bofur said as they all groaned. Gandalf winced as he quickly righted himself, already preparing to move on.
"Hey, watch your hands!" Hannah scolded Kili when she realized he was touching some rather inappropriate places as a result of their awkward landing, though it had happened quite by accident. Fili seemed amused at the trouble his brother had found himself in, but Kili was not and hastily apologized as she pushed away from him and rolled off what was left of the bridge. And none too soon, for almost as soon as Hannah moved, the rest of the bridge came crashing down on top of the dwarves, who all gave a shout and moaned in pain.
"You've got to be joking!" said Dwalin moodily while the others groaned and cursed as they hit and kicked away the rotted wooden planks.
"Gandalf!" Kili shouted when he saw movement in the dark and realized the goblins had returned, and were now crawling down the sides of the ravine after them. Their numbers appeared to have somehow tripled since their last attack.
"There's too many. We can't fight them," said Dwalin.
"Only on thing will save us: daylight!" said Gandalf, leading them on through the tunnel that they had landed next to on the lower level. "Quickly, quickly!" the wizard urged them. As they ran, they caught a glimpse of light filtering round a corner. Not red light, as of a fire or lantern, but a pale out-of-doors sort of light. They took heart at this encouraging sight and pushed themselves on with greater speed. They could now see the light was streaming through the cracks around a great stone door. Thorin and Gandalf made quick work of its goblin-guards while Hannah and the rest of the dwarves forced the stone door open as they charged forward, and together the company burst out into the dazzling daylight. There were a few steps running down into a narrow valley between tall mountains. Down these steps Gandalf led the dwarves, and they went on and on, till the sun began to sink westwards, behind the mountains. Looking forward, Hannah could see before her only ridges and slopes falling towards lowlands and plains glimpsed occasionally between the trees. They appeared to have gotten to the other side of the Misty Mountains, right to the edge of the Land Beyond. But they could not stop so near the goblins' territory and ventured on further, out of the little high valley, over its edge, and down the slopes beyond. They came upon a stony path winding downwards with a rocky wall on the left hand; on the other side the ground sloped away and there were dells below the level of the path overhung with bushes and low threes.
It was in one of these dells under the bushes where they finally halted to rest for a moment, and Gandalf took another headcount. He counted only thirteen aside from himself and Hannah.
"Where is Bilbo?" asked the wizard, looking round.
"He's not here?" Hannah asked, alarmed when she realized he was missing.
"Where is our hobbit? Where is our hobbit!?" asked Gandalf sternly as they all looked around, worried for his little friend.
Unbeknownst to them, the hobbit in question had also made it out, and had wandered down into the dells, where he heard them talking. Bilbo crept closer, and suddenly he saw peering between two boulders a head and face of snowy white hair; it was Balin doing look-out. He could have clapped and shouted for joy, but he did not. He had still got on the magic ring he found in Gollum's cave, for fear of meeting something unexpected and unpleasant, and he saw that Balin was looking straight at him without noticing him.
I will give them all a surprise, he thought, as he crawled into the bushes at the edge of the dell. Gandalf was arguing with the dwarves. They were discussing all that had happened in the tunnels, trying to figure out where they had last seen their burglar, and wondering what to do now. The dwarves were grumbling, and Gandalf was saying that they could not possibly go on with their journey leaving Bilbo behind in the hands of the goblins, without trying to find out if he was dead or alive, and without trying to rescue him.
"After all, he is my friend," said the wizard, "and not a bad little chap. I feel responsible for him. I wish to goodness you had not lost him."
The dwarves wanted to know why he had ever been brought at all, why he could not stick to his friends and come along with them, and why the wizard had not chosen someone with more sense.
"Curse that halfling! Now he's lost?" said Dwalin. "He has been more trouble than use so far."
"You would be lost too had we not come back for you," Hannah reminded him crossly in the hobbit's defense. They never would have been able to find their way out if that maze of tunnels in time without Mr. Gandalf's help.
"I brought him, and I do not bring things that are of no use," said Gandalf angrily. "Either you help me look for him, or Hannah and I will go and leave you here to get out of this mess as best you can by yourselves. If we can only find him again, you will thank me before all is over. Whatever did you want to go and drop him for, Dori?"
"You would have dropped him," said Dori, "if a goblin had suddenly grabbed your leg from behind in the dark, tripped up your feet, and kicked you in the back!"
"Then why didn't you pick him up again?"
"Good heavens! Can you ask! Goblins fighting and biting in the dark, everybody falling over bodies and hitting one another! You nearly chopped off my head with Glamdring, and Thorin was stabbing here and there and everywhere with Orcrist. All of a sudden Hannah yelled something and made one of those blinding flashes, and we saw the goblins running back yelping. You shouted 'follow me everybody!' and everybody ought to have followed. We thought everybody had. There was no time to count, as you know quite well, till we had dashed through the gate-guards, out of the lower door, and helter-skelter down here. And here we are—without the burglar, confusticate him!"
"I'll tell you what happened. Master Baggins saw his chance, and he took it," said Thorin sternly. "He has thought of nothing but his soft bed and his warm hearth since first he stepped out if his door. We will not be seeing our hobbit again. He is long gone."
"No, he isn't!" said Bilbo stepping down into the middle of them, and slipping off the ring.
Oh, how they jumped! Then they shouted with surprise and delight. Gandalf was as astonished as any of them, but probably more pleased than all the others, with the exception of Hannah. He called to Balin and told him what he thought of a look-out man who let people walk right into them like that without warning. It is a fact that Bilbo's reputation went up a very great deal with the dwarves after this. If they had still doubted that he was really a first-class burglar, in spite of Gandalf's words, they doubted no longer. Balin was the most puzzled of all; but everyone said it was a very clever bit of work.
Indeed Bilbo was so pleased with their praise that he said nothing whatever about the ring; and when they asked him how he did it, he said: "Oh, just crept along, you know—very carefully and quietly."
"Well, it is the first time that even a mouse has along carefully and quietly under my very nose and not been spotted," said Balin, "and I take my hood off to you." Which he did. "Balin at your service," said he.
"Your servant, Mr. Baggins," said Bilbo.
Then they all wanted to know all about his adventures after they had lost him, and he sat down and told them everything—except about the finding of the ring ('not just now' he thought). They were particularly interested in the riddle competition, and shuddered most appreciatively at his description of Gollum.
"And then I couldn't think of any other question with him sitting beside me," ended Bilbo; "so I said 'what's in my pocket?' And he couldn't guess in three goes. So I said: 'what about your promise? Show me the way out!' But he came at me to kill me, and I ran, and fell over, and he missed me in the dark. Then I followed him because I heard him talking to himself. He thought I really knew the way out, and so he was making for it. And then he sat down in the entrance, and I could not get by. So I jumped over him and escaped, and ran down to the gate."
"What about the goblins? How did you get past them?" Fili asked.
"How indeed," said Dwalin. "Perhaps there weren't there any."
"Well, what does it matter? The important thing is he's back," said Hannah.
"It matters. I want to know," said Thorin. "Why did you come back?" he asked the hobbit.
"Look, I know you doubt me. I know you always have. And you're right, I often think of Bag End," said Bilbo. "I miss my books, and my armchair, and my garden. See, that's where I belong. That's home. That's why I came back, because... you don't have one; a home. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back if I can." Upon hearing this, Thorin and many of the dwarves fell speechless, but Gandalf and Hannah smiled at their small but brave friend. "And for the record there were lots of goblins," Bilbo continued after a moment; "but I dodged 'em. I got stuck in the door, which was only open a crack, and I lost lots of buttons." He said sadly, looking at his torn clothes. "But I squeezed through all right—and here I am."
The dwarves looked at him with quite a new respect, after hearing his resolve to help them; and when he talked about dodging guards, jumping over Gollum, and squeezing through, as if it was not very difficult or alarming.
"What did I tell you?" said Gandalf laughing. "Mr. Baggins has more about him than you guess." He gave Bilbo a queer look from under his bushy brows as he said this, and the hobbit wondered if he guessed at the part of his tale that he had left out.
Then he had questions of his own to ask, for if Gandalf had explained it all by now to the dwarves, Bilbo had not heard it. He wanted to know how the wizard and Hannah had turned up again, where they had all got to now.
The wizard, to tell the truth, never minded explaining his cleverness more than once, so now he had told Bilbo that both he and Elrond had been well aware of the presence of evil goblins in that part of the mountains. But their main gate used to come out on a different pass, one more easy to travel by, so that they often caught people benighted near their gates. Evidently people had given up going that way, and the goblins must have opened their new entrance at the top of the pass the dwarves had taken quite recently, because it had been found quite safe up until now.
"I must see if I can't find a more or less decent giant to block it up again," said Gandalf, "or soon there will be no getting over the mountains at all." As soon as Gandalf had heard Bilbo's yell he realized what had happened, as had Hannah, who had also been informed of the danger. In the flash which killed the goblins grabbing them, they had nipped outside to find a side passage and followed the echoes of goblin voices to the great hall, where the drivers had brought their prisoners, and there he sat down and worked the best magic he could in the shadows while Hannah dug inside her bag to locate the smoke bomb.
"A very ticklish business, it was," Hannah added. "Very touch and go!"
But, of course, Gandalf had made a special study of bewitchment with fire and lights (even the hobbit had never forgotten the magic fireworks at Old Took's midsummer-eve parties, as you remember). And though Hannah could not use magic herself, she had used what understanding she had of modern chemistry to master the more practical and technical points in the knowledge of these areas that he had passed on to her. The rest we all know—except that Gandalf knew all about the back-door, as the goblins called the lower gate, where Bilbo lost his buttons. As a matter of fact it was well known to anybody who was acquainted with this part of the mountains; but it took a wizard to keep his head in the tunnels and guide them in the right direction.
"They made that gate ages ago," he said, "partly for a way of escape, if they needed one; partly as a way out into the lands beyond, where they still come in the dark and do great damage, they guard it always and no one has ever managed to block it up. They will guard it doubly after this," he laughed.
All the others laughed too. After all they had lost a good deal, but they had killed the Great Goblin and a great many others besides, and they had all escaped, so they might be said to have made the best of it so far. But the wizard called them to their senses.
"We must be getting on at once, now we are a little rested," he said. "They will be out after us in hundreds when night comes on; and already shadows are lengthening. They can smell our footsteps for hours after we have passed. We must be miles put before dusk. There will be a bit of moon, if it keeps fine, and that is lucky. Not that they mind the moon much, but it will give us a little light to steer by."
"Oh, yes!" he said in answer to more questions from the hobbit. "You lose track of time inside goblin-tunnels. Today's Thursday, and it was Monday night or Tuesday morning that we were captured. We have gone miles and miles, and come right down through the heart of the mountains, and are now on the other side—quite a shortcut. But we are not at the point to which our pass would have brought us; we are too far to the North, and have some awkward country ahead. And we are still pretty high up. Let's get on!"