towers

the white rider 637
working up the slope towards the forest. To find the hobbits
is our errand, whatever we may think of our visitor in the
night. If they escaped by some chance, then they must have
hidden in the trees, or they would have been seen. If we find
nothing between here and the eaves of the wood, then we
will make a last search upon the battle-field and among the
ashes. But there is little hope there: the horsemen of Rohan
did their work too well.’
For some time the companions crawled and groped upon
the ground. The tree stood mournfully above them, its dry
leaves now hanging limp, and rattling in the chill easterly
wind. Aragorn moved slowly away. He came to the ashes of
the watch-fire near the river-bank, and then began to retrace
the ground back towards the knoll where the battle had been
fought. Suddenly he stooped and bent low with his face
almost in the grass. Then he called to the others. They came
running up.
‘Here at last we find news!’ said Aragorn. He lifted up a
broken leaf for them to see, a large pale leaf of golden hue,
now fading and turning brown. ‘Here is a mallorn-leaf of
Lórien, and there are small crumbs on it, and a few more
crumbs in the grass. And see! there are some pieces of cut
cord lying nearby!’
‘And here is the knife that cut them!’ said Gimli. He
stooped and drew out of a tussock, into which some heavy
foot had trampled it, a short jagged blade. The haft from
which it had been snapped was beside it. ‘It was an orcweapon,’
he said, holding it gingerly, and looking with disgust
at the carved handle: it had been shaped like a hideous head
with squinting eyes and leering mouth.
‘Well, here is the strangest riddle that we have yet found!’
exclaimed Legolas. ‘A bound prisoner escapes both from the
Orcs and from the surrounding horsemen. He then stops,
while still in the open, and cuts his bonds with an orc-knife.
But how and why? For if his legs were tied, how did he walk?
And if his arms were tied, how did he use the knife? And if