In his haste to escape, Bilbo nearly crashed into Thorin, who had braved the tunnel to meet him.
"You're alive!" said Thorin.
"Not for much longer!" said Bilbo.
"Did you find the Arkenstone?"
"The dragon's coming!" cried the hobbit.
"The Arkenstone!" said Thorin sternly. "Did you find it?"
Seeing the look in the Dwarf's eyes, Bilbo hesitated for a moment.
"No, we have to get out," said the hobbit taking a step to leave, but the Dwarf stopped him by placing his sword in front of him to block the way. "Thorin." Thorin used his sword to push Bilbo back. "Thorin!" The Dwarf kept his sword pointed at the hobbit looking at him threateningly, but then he noticed that the hobbit's eyes were no longer on the blade before him. Bilbo, who could stand no longer after everything he had just been through, stumbled and fell in a faint. It was only then that Thorin became fully aware of what he had been about to do to his little friend, and finally noticed that the hobbit had not escaped entirely unscathed.
The evening had grown late into the night when Thorin came carrying the hobbit back out on to the 'doorstep'. The Dwarves revived him, and doctored his scorches as well as they could; but it was a long time before the hair on the back of his head and heels grew properly again: it had all been singed and frizzled right down to the skin. In the meanwhile his friends did their best to cheer him up; they were eager for his story, especially wanting to know why the dragon had made such an awful noise, and how Bilbo had escaped.
But the hobbit was worried and uncomfortable, and they had difficulty in getting anything out of him. On thinking things over he was now regretting some of the things he had said to the dragon, and was not eager to repeat them. And any way there was no time for any of that at the moment. Smaug was still to be reckoned with. It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.
The Dragon's rage had passed beyond description—the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted, though not a single coin had actually been taken. His fire belched forth, the hall smoked, he shook the mountain-roots. He thrust his head in vain at the little hole, and then coiling his length together, roaring like thunder underground, he sped from his deep lair through its great door, out into the huge passages of the mountain-palace and up towards the Front Gate.
To hunt the whole mountain till he gad caught the thief and had torn and trampled him was his one thought. He issued from the Gate, the waters rose in fierce whistling steam, and he soared blazing into the air and settled on the mountain-top in a spout of green and scarlet flame. The Dwarves heard the awful rumor of his flight, and they crouched against the walls of the grassy terrace cringing under boulders, hoping somehow to escape the frightful eyes of the hunting dragon.
There they would have all been killed, if it had not been for Bilbo once again. "Quick! Quick!" he gasped. "The door! The tunnel! It's no good here."
Roused by these words they were just about to creep inside the tunnel when Bifur gave a cry: "My cousins! Bombur and Bofur—we have forgotten them, they are down in the valley!"
"They will be slain, and all our ponies too, and all our stores lost!" moaned the others. "We can do nothing."
"Nonsense!" said Thorin, recovering his dignity. "We cannot leave them. Get inside Mr. Baggins and Balin, and you two Fili and Kili—the dragon shan't have all of us. Now you others, where are the ropes? Be quick!"
Those were perhaps the worst moments they had been through yet. The horrible sounds of Smaug's anger were echoing in the stony hollows far above; at any moment he might come blazing down or fly whirling round and find them there, near the cliff's edge hauling madly on the ropes. Up came Bofur, and still all was safe. Up came Bombur, puffing and blowing while the ropes creaked, and still all was safe. Up came some tools and bundles of stores, and then danger was upon them.
A whirring noise was heard. A red light touched the points of standing rocks. The dragon came.
They had barely time to fly back to the tunnel, pulling and dragging their bundles, when Smaug came hurtling from the North, licking the mountain-sides with flame, beating his great wings with noise like a roaring wind. His hot breath shriveled the grass before the door, and drove in through the crack they had left and scorched them as they lay hid. Flickering fired leaped up and the black rock-shadows danced. Then darkness fell as he passed again. The ponies screamed in terror, burst their ropes and galloped wildly off. The dragon swooped and turned to pursue them and was gone.
"That'll be the end of our poor beasts!" said Balin. "Nothing can escape Smaug once he sees it. Here we are and here we shall have to stay, unless one fancies tramping the long open miles back to the river with Smaug on the watch!"
It was not a pleasant thought! They crept further down the tunnel, and there they lay and shivered though it was warm and stuffy, until dawn came pale through the crack of the door. Every now and again through the night they could hear the roar of the flying dragon grow and then pass and fade, as he hunted round and round the mountain-sides.
Smaug guessed from the ponies, and from the traces of the camps he had discovered, that men had indeed come up with the Dwarves at some point from the river and the lake and that they had scaled the mountain-side from the valley where the ponies had been standing; but the door withstood his searching eye, and the little high-walled bay had kept out his fiercest flames. Long he hunted in vain till the dawn chilled his wrath and he went back to his golden couch to sleep—and to gather new strength. He would not forget or forgive the theft, not if a thousand years turned him to smoldering stone, but he could afford to wait. Slow and silent he crept back into his lair and half closed his eyes.
When morning came the terror of the Dwarves grew less. They realized that dangers of this kind were inevitable when dealing with such a guardian, and that it was no good giving up yet. Nor could they get away just now, as Balin had pointed out. Their ponies were lost or killed, and they would have to wait some time before Smaug relaxed his watch sufficiently for them to dare the long way on foot. Luckily they had saved enough stores to last them still for some time.
They debated long on what was to be done, but they could think of no way of getting rid of Smaug—which had always been a weak point in their plans, as Bilbo felt inclined to point out. Then as is the nature of folk that are thoroughly perplexed, they began to grumble at the hobbit, blaming him for what had at first so pleased them: for going bravely into Smaug's lair and stirring up his wrath so soon. They also lamented and criticized his decision to leave Hannah behind with the Elves, as surely the apprentice of a wizard, who must have been taught a great many of her master's enchantments and spells, could have been of some use to them in this desperate situation.
"What else do you suppose a burglar is to do?" asked Bilbo angrily. "I was not engaged to kill dragons, that is warrior's work, but to steal treasure. I made the best beginning I could. Did you expect me to trot back with the whole hoard of Thrór on my back? If there is any grumbling to be done, I think I might have a say. You ought to have brought five hundred burglars, not one. I am sure it reflects great credit on your grandfather, but you cannot pretend that you ever made the vast extent of his wealth clear to me. I should want hundreds of years to bring it all up,"—the dragon had been quite right about that part—"if I was fifty times as big, and Smaug as tame as a rabbit. And you know perfectly well why Hannah herself decided not to come with us. Shame on you for thinking to make an injured girl brave such danger!"
After that of course the Dwarves begged his pardon. "What then do you propose we do, Mr. Baggins?" asked Thorin.
"I have no idea at the moment—if you mean about removing the treasure, that obviously depends entirely on some new turn of luck and the getting rid of Smaug. Getting rid of dragons is not at all in my line, but 'every worm has his weak spot,' as my father used to say, though I am sure it was not from personal experience, and I believe that I have discovered Smaug's."
"What is it?" cried the Dwarves. "Do get on with your tale!"
So Bilbo told them all he could remember, and he confessed that he had a nasty feeling that the dragon guessed too much from his riddles added to the camps and ponies. "I am sure he knows we came from Lake-town and had help from there; and I have a horrible feeling that his next move may be in that direction. I wish to goodness I had never said that about Barrel-rider; it would make even a blind rabbit in these parts think of the Lake-men." The old thrush was sitting on the rock nearby with his head cocked to one side, listening to all that was said. (They had risked going back out on to the 'doorstep' for a bit of fresh air.) It shows what an ill temper Bilbo was in: he picked up a stone and threw it at the thrush, which merely fluttered aside and came back.
"Drat the bird!" said Bilbo crossly. "I believe he is listening, and I don't like the look of him."
"Leave him alone!" said Thorin. "The thrushes are good and friendly—this is a very old bird indeed, and is maybe the last left of the ancient breed that used to live about here, tame to the hands of my father and grandfather. They were a long-lived and magical race, and this might even be one of those that were alive then, a couple of hundred years or more ago. The Men of Dale used to have the trick of understanding their language, and used them for messengers to fly to the Men of the Lake and elsewhere."
"Well, he'll have news to take to Lake-town all right, if that is what he is after," said Bilbo; "I only hope there still people left there that trouble with thrush-language so that he can tell them to run."
"Well, well! It cannot be helped, and it is difficult not to slip in talking to a dragon, or so I have always heard," said Balin, anxious to comfort him. "I think you did very well, if you ask me—you found out one very useful thing at any rate, and got home alive, and that is more than most can say who have had words with the likes of Smaug. It may be a mercy and a blessing yet to know of the bare patch in the old Worm's diamond waistcoat."
That turned the conversation, and they began discussing dragon-slayings historical, dubious, and mythical, and all the various sorts of stabs and jabs and undercuts, and the different arts, devices, and stratagems by which they had been accomplished. The general opinion was that catching a dragon napping was not as easy as it sounded, and the attempt to stick one or prod one asleep was more likely to end in disaster than a bold frontal attack. All the while they talked the thrust listened, till at last when the stars began to peep forth, it silently spread its wings and flew away. And all the while they talked and the shadows lengthened Bilbo became more and more unhappy and his foreboding grew.
At last he interrupted them. "I am sure we are very unsafe here," he said, "and I don't see the point of sitting here. The dragon has withered all the pleasant green, and anyway the night has come and it is cold. But I feel it in my bones that this place will be attacked again. Smaug knows how I came down to his hall, and you can trust him to guess where the other end of the tunnel is. He will break all this side of the Mountain to bits, if necessary, to stop up our entrance, and if we are smashed with it the better he will like it."
"You are very gloomy, Mr. Baggins!" said Kili. "Why has not Smaug blocked the lower end, then, if he is so eager to keep us out?"
"That's right. He has not, or we would have heard him," said Fili.
"I don't know, I don't know—he could be trying to lure me in again, I suppose, or perhaps because he is waiting till after tonight's hunt, or because he does not want to damage his bedroom if he can help it—but I wish you would not argue," said Bilbo. "Smaug will be coming out at any minute now, and our only hope is to get well in the tunnel and shut the door."
He seemed so much in earnest that the Dwarves at last did as he said, though they delayed shutting the door—it seemed a desperate plan, for no one knew whether or how they could get it open again from the inside, and the thought of being shut in a place from which the only way out led through the dragon's lair was not one they liked. Also everything seemed quite quiet, both outside and down the tunnel. So for a longish while they sat inside not far down from the half-open door and went on talking.
The talk turned to the dragon's wicked words about the Dwarves. Bilbo wished he had never heard them, or at least that he could feel quite certain that the Dwarves now were absolutely honest when they declared that they had never thought at all about what would happen after the treasure had been won. But having already had one of his friends point a sword at him over a jewel the hobbit found his confidence somewhat shaken, though the Dwarf seemed to have recovered from the spark of whatever madness had gripped him in that moment. "We knew it would be a desperate venture," said Thorin, "and we know that still; and I still think that when we have won it will be the time enough to think what to do about it. As for your share, Mr. Baggins, I assure you we are more than grateful and shall choose your own fourteenth, as soon as we have anything to divide. I am sorry if you are worried about transport, and I admit the difficulties are great—the lands have not become less wild with the passing of time, rather the reverse—but we will do whatever we can for you, and take our share of the cost when the time comes. Believe me or not as you like!"
From that the talk turned to the great hoard itself and to the things that Thorin and Balin remembered. They wondered if they were still lying there unharmed in the hall below: the spears that were made for the armies of the great King Bladorthin (long since dead), each had a thrice-forged head and their shafts were inlaid with cunning gold, but they were never delivered or paid for; shield made for warriors long dead; the great golden cup of Thrór, two-handed, hammered and carven with birds and flowers whose eyes and petals were of jewels; coats of mail gilded and silvered and impenetrable; the white gems of Lasgalen, which had once belonged to the Elvenking of Mirkwood, that had been crafted into a magnificent necklace that shone like pure starlight (the very one Bilbo had already heard tell of from Hannah); the necklace of Girion, Lord of Dale, made of five hundred emeralds green as grass, which he gave for the arming of his eldest son in a coat of Dwarf-linked rings the like of which had never been made before, for it was wrought of pure silver to the power and strength of triple steel. But fairest of all was the great white gem, which Bilbo had been sent in to retrieve, the Heart of the Mountain, the Arkenstone of Thráin.
"The Arkenstone! The Arkenstone!" murmured Thorin in the dark, half dreaming with his chin upon his knees. "It was a globe with a thousand facets; it shone like silver in the firelight, like water in the sun, like snow under the stars, like rain upon the Moon!"
From his description Bilbo knew the stone that he had found earlier was indeed the one and only Arkenstone, but the enchanted desire of the hoard had fallen from the hobbit. All through their talk he was only half listening to them. He sat nearest to the door with one ear cocked for any beginnings of a sound without, his other was alert for echoes beyond the murmurs of the Dwarves, for any whisper of movement far below.
Darkness grew deeper and he grew even more uneasy. "Shut the door!" he begged them. "I fear that dragon in my marrow. I like this silence far less than the uproar of last night. Shut the door before it is too late!"
Something in his voice gave the Dwarves an uncomfortable feeling. Slowly Thorin shook off his dreams and getting up he kicked away the stone that wedged the door. Then they thrust upon it, and it closed with a snap and a clang. No trace of a keyhole was there left on the inside. They were shut in the Mountain!
And not a moment too soon. They had hardly gone any distance down the tunnel when a blow smote the side of the Mountain like the crash of battering-rams made of forest oaks and swung by giants. The rock boomed, the walls cracked and stones fell from the roof on their heads. What would have happened if the door had still been open I don't like to think. They fled further down the tunnel glad to still be alive, while behind them outside they heard the roar and rumble of Smaug's fury. He was breaking rocks to pieces, smashing wall and cliff with the lashings of his huge tail, till their little lofty camping ground, the scorched grass, the thrush's stone, the snail-covered walls, the narrow ledge, and all disappeared in a jumble of smithereens, and an avalanche of splintered stones fell over the cliff into the valley below.
Smaug had left his lair in silent stealth, quietly soared into the air, and then floated heavy and slow in the dark like a monstrous crow, down the wind towards the west of the Mountain, in the hopes of catching unawares something or somebody there, and of spying the outlet to the passage which the thief had used. This was the outburst of his wrath when he could find nobody and see nothing, even where he guessed the outlet must actually be.
After he had let off his rage in this way he felt better and he thought in his heart that he would not be troubled again from that direction. In the meanwhile he had further vengeance to take. "Barrel-rider!" he snorted. "Your feet came from the waterside and up the water without a doubt. I don't know your smell, but if you are not one of those men of the Lake, you had their help. They shall see me and remember who is the real King under the Mountain!"
He rose in fire and went away south towards the Running River.
In the meanwhile, the Dwarves sat in the darkness, and utter silence fell about them. Little they ate and little they spoke. They could not count the passing time; and they had scarcely dared to move, for the whisper of their voices echoed and rustled in the tunnel. If they dozed, they woke still to darkness and to silence going on unbroken. At last after days and days of waiting, as it seemed, when they were becoming choked and dazed for want of air, they could bear it no longer. They would almost have welcomed sounds from bellows of the dragon's return. In the silence they feared some cunning devilry of his, but they could not sit there forever.
Thorin spoke: "Let us try the door!" he said. "I must feel the wind on my face soon or die. I think I would rather be smashed by Smaug in the open than suffocate in here!" So several of the Dwarves got up and groped back to the where the door had been. But they found that the upper end of the tunnel had been shattered and blocked with broken rock. Neither key nor the magic it had once obeyed would ever open that door again.
"We are trapped!" they groaned. "This is the end. We shall die here."
But somehow, just when the Dwarves were most despairing, Bilbo felt a strange lightening of the heart, as if a heavy weight had gone from under his waistcoat.
"Come, come!" he said. "'While there's life there's hope!' as my father used to say, and 'Third time pays for all.' I am going down the tunnel once again. I have been that way once already, when I knew there was a dragon at the other end, so I will risk a second visit when I am no longer sure. Anyway the only way out is down. And I think this time you had better all come with me."
"Yes," said Thorin, the first to go forward by Bilbo's side. "I will not die like this. Cowering, clawing for breath. We make for the forges."
"He'll see us, sure as death," said Dwalin.
"Not if we split up," argued Thorin.
"Thorin, we'll never make it," said Balin.
"Some of us might. Lead him to the forges. We kill the dragon," Thorin Oakenshield said with a desperate determination. "If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together. Lead on, Master Burglar."
"Now do be careful!" whispered the hobbit, "and as quiet as you can be! There may be no Smaug at the bottom, but then again there may be. Don't let us take an unnecessary risks!"
Down, down they went. The Dwarves could not, of course, compare with the hobbit in real stealth, and they made a great deal of puffing and shuffling which echoes magnified alarmingly; but though every now and again Bilbo in fear stopped and listened, not a sound stirred below. Near the bottom, as well as he could judge, Bilbo slipped on his ring and went ahead. But he did not need it: the darkness was complete, and they were all invisible, ring or no ring. In fact so black was it that the hobbit came to the opening unexpectedly, put hid hand on air, stumbled forward, and rolled headlong into the hall!
There he lay face downwards on the floor and did not dare to get up, or hardly even to breathe. But nothing moved. There was not a gleam of light—unless, as it seemed to him, when at last he slowly raised his head, there was a pale white glint, above him and far off in the gloom. But certainly it was not a spark of dragon-fire, though the wormstench was heavy in the place, and the taste of vapor was on his tongue.
At length Mr. Baggins could bear it no longer. "Confound you, Smaug, you worm!" he squeaked aloud. "Stop playing hide-and-seek! Give me a light, and then eat me, if you can catch me!"
Faint echoes ran round the unseen hall, but there was no answer.
Bilbo got up, and found that he did not know in what direction to turn.
"Now I wonder what Smaug is playing at," he said. "He is not at home today (or tonight, or whatever it is), I do believe. If Óin and Glóin have not lost their tinder-boxes, perhaps we can make a little light, and have a look round before the luck turns."
"Light!" he cried. "Can anybody make a light?"
The Dwarves, of course, were very alarmed when Bilbo fell forward down the step with a bump into the hall, and they sat huddled just where he had left them at the end of the tunnel. Which was probably for the best in the end, because they would have trampled the poor little hobbit if they had tried to follow after him without thinking. But having expected to come face to face with the dragon immediately in a race to the forges and a fight to the death, only to find more silence and darkness, they were at a loss as to what to do next and seemed to be losing their nerve.
"Shh! Shh!" they hissed, when they heard his voice: and though that helped the hobbit to find out where they were, it was some time before he could get anything else out of them. But in the end, when Bilbo actually began to stamp on the floor, and screamed out 'light!' at the top of his shrill voice, Thorin gave way, and Óin and Glóin were sent back to their bundles at the top of the tunnel.
After a while a twinkling gleamed showed them returning, Óin with a small pine torch in his hand, and Glóin with a bundle of others under his arm. Quickly Bilbo trotted to the door and took the torch; but he could not persuade the Dwarves to light the others or to come join him yet. As Thorin carefully explained, Mr. Baggins was still officially their expert burglar and investigator. If he liked to risk a light, that was his affair. They would wait in the tunnel for his report. So they sat near the door and watched.
They saw the little dark shape of the hobbit start across the floor holding his tiny light aloft. Every now and again, while he was still near enough, they caught a glint and a twinkle as he stumbled on some golden thing. The light grew smaller as he wandered away into the vast hall; then it began to rise dancing into the air. Bilbo was climbing the great mound of treasure. Soon he stood upon the top, and still went on. Then they saw him halt and stoop for a moment; but they did not know the reason.
It was the Arkenstone, the Heart of the Mountain. Ever as he climbed, the same white gleam had shone before him and drawn his feet towards it, guiding him with the glow of its own inner light. Now as he came near, it was the small wavering light of his torch that was reflected by the gem and splintered and tinged with flickering sparkles of many colors, instead of the dragon's red glow. But it was no less beautiful and no less magnificent.
Suddenly Bilbo's arm went towards it drawn by its enchantment. His small hand would not close about it, for it was a large and heavy gem; but he lifted it, shut his eyes, and put it in his deepest pocket.
Now I am a burglar indeed! thought he. But I suppose I must tell the Dwarves about it—some time. They did say I could pick and choose my own share; and I think I would choose this, if they took all the rest! All the same he had an uncomfortable feeling that the picking and choosing had not really been meant to include this marvelous gem, and that trouble would yet come of it. But after that little incident with Thorin a few days ago, however brief, he also had an equally uncomfortable feeling that somehow returning the gem to the Dwarf now would not help matters either: especially when he remembered how Smaug had taunted him by hinting of the terrible effect it might have on his friend.
Now he went on again. Down the other side of the great mound he climbed, and the spark of his torch vanished from the sight of the watching Dwarves. But soon they saw it far away in the distance again. Bilbo was crossing the floor of the hall.
He went on, until he came to the great doors at the further side, and there a draught of air refreshed him, but it almost puffed out his light. He peeped timidly through, and caught a glimpse of great passages and of the dim beginnings of wide stairs going up and into the gloom. And still there was no sight or sound of Smaug. He was just going to turn and go back, when a black shape swooped at him, and brushed his face. He squeaked and started, stumbled backwards and fell. His torch dropped head downwards and went out!
"Only a bat, I suppose and hope!" he said miserably. "But now what am I to do? Which is East, South, North, or West?"
"Thorin! Balin! Óin! Glóin! Fili! Kili!" he cried as loud as he could—it seemed a thin little noise in the wide blackness. "The light's gone out! Someone come and find me and help me!" For the moment his courage had failed altogether.
Faintly the Dwarves heard his small cries, though the only word they could catch was 'help!'
"Now what on earth or under it has happened?" said Thorin.
"Is it the dragon?" asked a frightened Ori.
"Certainly not, or he wouldn't go on squeaking," said Dwalin.
They waited a moment or two, and still there were no dragon-noises, no sound at all in fact but Bilbo's distant voice. "Come, one of you, get another light or two!" Thorin ordered. "It seems we have got to help our burglar."
"It is about our turn to help," said Balin, "and I am quite willing to go. Anyway I expect it is safe for the moment."
Glóin lit several more torches, and then they all crept out, one by one, and went along the wall as hurriedly as they could. It was not long before they met Bilbo himself coming back towards them. His wits had quickly returned as soon as he saw the twinkle of their lights.
"Only a bat and a dropped torch, nothing worse!" he said in answer to their questions. Though they were much relieved, they were inclined to be grumpy at being frightened for nothing; but what would they have said, if he told them that moment of the Arkenstone, I don't know. The mere fleeting glimpses of treasure which they had caught as they went along had rekindled all the fire of heir Dwarvish hearts; and when the heart of a Dwarf, even the most respectable, is wakened by gold and by jewels, he grows suddenly bold, and he may become fierce.
The Dwarves no longer needed any urging. All were now eager to explore the hall while they had the chance, and willing to believe that, for the present, Smaug was away from home. Each now gripped a lighted torch; and as they gazed, first on side and then on another, they forgot fear and even caution. They spoke aloud and cried out to one another, as they lifted old treasures from the mound or from the wall and held them in the light, caressing and fingering them.
Fili and Kili were almost in a merry mood, and finding still hanging there many golden harps strung with silver they took them and struck them; and being magical (and also untouched by the dragon, who had small interest in music) they were still in tune. The dark hall was filled with a melody that had long been silent. But most of the Dwarves were more practical; they gathered gems and stuffed their pockets, and let what they could not carry fall back through their fingers with a sigh. Thorin was not least among these; but always he searched from side to side for something which he could not find. It was the Arkenstone; but he spoke of it yet to no one.
Now the Dwarves took down mail and weapons from walls, and armed themselves. Royal indeed did Thorin look, clad in a coat of gold-plated rings, with a silver-hafted axe in a belt crusted with scarlet stones.
"Mr. Baggins!" he cried. "Here is the first payment of your reward! Cast off your old coat and put on this!"
With that he put on Bilbo a small coat of mail, wrought for some young elf-prince long ago. It was of silver-steel, which the Elves call mithril, and with it went a belt a belt of pearls and crystals. A light helm of figured leather, strengthened between with hoops of steel, and studded about the brim with white gems, was set upon the hobbit's head.
I feel magnificent, he thought; but I expect I look rather absurd. How they would laugh on the Hill at home! Still I wish there was a looking-glass handy!
All the same Mr. Baggins kept his head more clear of the bewitchment of the hoard than the Dwarves did. Long before the Dwarves were tired of examining the treasures, he became wary of it and sat down on the floor; and he began to wonder nervously what the end of it all would be. I would give a good many of these precious goblets, he thought, for a drink of something cheering out of one of Beorn's wooden bowls! And he felt sure Hannah would have shared this sentiment had she been there with them. He wondered what would happen to her if they did not make it out alive.
"Thorin!" he cried aloud. "What next? We are armed, but what good has any armor ever been against Smaug the Dreadful? This treasure is not yet won back. We are not looking for gold yet, but for a way of escape; and we have tempted luck too long!"
"You speak the truth!" answered Thorin, recovering his wits. "Let us go! I will guide you. Not in a thousand years should I forget this place." Then he hailed the others, and they gathered together, and holding their torches above their heads they passed through the gaping doors, not without many a backward glance of longing.
Their glittering mail they covered again with their old cloaks and their bright helms with their tattered hoods, and one by one they walked behind Thorin, a line of little lights in the darkness that halted often, listening in fear once more for any rumor of the dragon's coming.
Though all the old adornments were long moldered or destroyed, and though all was befouled and blasted with the comings and goings of the monster, Thorin knew every passage and every turn. They climbed long stairs, and turned and went down wide echoing ways, and turned again and climbed yet more stairs, and yet more stairs again. These were smooth, cut out of the living rock broad and fair; and up, up, the Dwarves went, and they met no sign of any living thing, only furtive shadows that fled from the approach of their torches fluttering in the draughts.
The steps were not made, all the same, for hobbit legs, and Bilbo was just feeling that he could go on no longer, when suddenly the roof sprang high and far beyond the reach of their torch-light. A white glimmer could be seen coming through some opening far above, and the air smelt sweeter. Before them light came dimly through great doors, that hung twisted on their hinges and half burnt.
"This is the great chamber of Thrór," said Thorin; "the hall of feasting and of council. Not far off now is the Front Gate."
They passed through the ruined chamber. Tables were rotting there; chairs and benches were lying overturned, charred and decaying. Skulls and bones were upon the floor among flagons and bowls and broken drinking-horns and dust. As they came through yet more doors at the further end, a sound of water fell upon their ears, and the grey light grew suddenly more full.
"There is the birth of the Running River," said Thorin. "From here it hastens to the Gate. Let us follow it!"
Out of a dark opening in a wall of rock there issued a boiling water, and it flowed swirling in a narrow channel, carved and made straight and deep by the cunning of ancient hands. Beside it ran a stone-paved road, wide enough for many men abreast. Swiftly along this they ran, and round a wide sweeping turn—and behold! Before them stood the broad light of day. In front there rose a tall arch, still showing the fragments of old carven work within, worn and splintered and blackened though it was. A misty sun sent its pale light between the arms of the Mountain, and beams of gold fell on the pavement at the threshold.
A whirl of bats frightened from slumber by their smoking torches flurried over them; as they sprang forward their feet slithered on stones rubbed smooth and slimmed by the passing of the dragon. Now before them the water fell noisily outward and foamed down towards the valley. They flung their pale torches to the ground, and stood gazing out with dazzled eyes. They were come to the Front Gate, and were looking out upon Dale.
"Well!" said Bilbo, "I never expected to be looking out of this door. And I never expected to be so pleased to see the sun again, and to feel the wind on my face. But, ow! This wind is cold!"
It was. A bitter easterly breeze blew with the threat of oncoming winter. It swirled over and round the arms of the Mountain into the valley, and sighed among the rocks. After their long time in the stewing depths of dragon-haunted caverns, they shivered in the sun.
Suddenly Bilbo realized that he was not only tired but also very hungry indeed. "It seems to be late morning," he said, "and so I suppose it is more or less breakfast-time—if there is any breakfast to have. But I don't feel Smaug's front doorstep is the safest place for a meal. Do let's go somewhere where we can sit quiet for a bit!"
"Quite right!" said Balin. "And I think I know which way we should go: we ought to make for the old look-out post at the South-West corner of the Mountain."
"How far is that?" asked the hobbit.
"Five hours march, I should think. It will be rough going. The road from the Gate along the left edge of the stream seems all broken up. But look down there! The river loops suddenly east across Dale in front of the ruined town. At that point there was once a bridge, leading to stairs that climbed up the right bank, and so to a road running towards Ravenhill. There is (or was) a path that left the road and climbed up to the post. A hard climb, too, even if the old steps are still there."
"Dear me!" grumbled the hobbit. "More walking and more climbing without breakfast! I wonder how many breakfasts, and other meals, we have missed inside that nasty clockless, timeless hole?"
As a matter of fact two nights and the day between had gone by (and not altogether without food) since the dragon smashed the magic door, but Bilbo had quite lost count, and it might have been one night or a week of nights for all he could tell.
"Come, come!" said Thorin laughing—his spirits had begun to rise again, and he rattled the precious stones in his pockets. "Don't call my place a nasty hole! You wait till it has been cleaned and redecorated!"
"That won't be till Smaug's dead," said Bilbo glumly. "In the meanwhile where is he? I would give a good breakfast to know. I hope he is not up on the Mountain looking down at us!"
That idea disturbed the Dwarves mightily, and they quickly decided that Bilbo and Balin were right.
"We must move away from here," said Dori. "I feel as if his eyes were on the back of my head."
"It's a cold and lonesome place," said Bombur. "There may be drink, but I see no sign of food. A dragon would always be hungry in such parts."
"Come on! Come on!" cried the others. "Let us follow Balin's path!"
Under the rocky wall to the right there was no path, so they trudged among the stones on the left side of the river, and the emptiness and desolation soon sobered even Thorin again. The bridge that Balin had spoken of they found long fallen, and most of its stones were now only boulders in the shallow noisy stream; but they forded the water without much difficulty, and found the ancient steps, and climbed the high bank. After going a short way they struck the old road, and before long came to a deep dell sheltered among the rocks; there they rested for a while and had such a breakfast as they could, chiefly cram and water. (If you want to know what cram is, I can only say that I don't know the recipe; but it is biscuitish, keeps good indefinitely, is supposed to be sustaining, and is certainly not entertaining, being in fact very uninteresting except as a chewing exercise. It was made by the Lake-men for long journeys.)
After that they went on again; and now the road struck westwards and left the river, and the great shoulder of the south-pointing mountain-spur drew ever nearer. At length they reached the hill path. It scrambled steeply up, and they plodded slowly one behind the other, till at last in the late afternoon they came to the top of the ridge and saw the wintry sun going downwards to the West.
Here they found a flat place without a wall on three sides, but backed to the North by a rocky face in which there was a wide view East and South and West.
"Here," said Balin, "in the old days we used to always keep watchmen, and that door behind leads into a rock-hewn chamber that was made here as a guardroom. There were several places like it round the Mountain. But there seemed small need for watching in the days of our prosperity, and the guards were made over comfortable, perhaps—otherwise we might have had longer warnings of the coming of the dragon, and things might have been different. Still, here we can now lie hid and sheltered for a while, and can see much without being seen."
"Not much use, if we have been seen coming here," said Dori, who was always looking up towards the Mountain's peak, as if he expected to see Smaug perched there like a bird on a steeple.
"We must take our chance of that," said Thorin. "We can go no further today."
"Hear, hear!" cried Bilbo, and flung himself on the ground.
In the rock-chamber there would have been room for a hundred, and there was a small chamber further in, more removed from the cold outside, it was quite deserted; not even wild animals seemed to have used it in all the days of Smaug's dominion. There they laid their burdens; and some threw themselves down at once and slept, but others sat near the door and discussed their plans. In all their talk they came perpetually back to one thing: where was Smaug? They looked West and there was nothing, and East there was nothing, and in the South there was no sign of the dragon, but there was a gathering of very many birds. At that they gazed and wondered; but they were no nearer understanding it, when the first cold stars came out.