towers

Chapter 2
THE PASSAGE OF THE MARSHES
Gollum moved quickly, with his head and neck thrust
forward, often using his hands as well as his feet. Frodo
and Sam were hard put to it to keep up with him; but he
seemed no longer to have any thought of escaping, and if
they fell behind, he would turn and wait for them. After a
time he brought them to the brink of the narrow gully that
they had struck before; but they were now further from the
hills.
‘Here it is!’ he cried. ‘There is a way down inside, yes.
Now we follows it – out, out away over there.’ He pointed
south and east towards the marshes. The reek of them came
to their nostrils, heavy and foul even in the cool night air.
Gollum cast up and down along the brink, and at length
he called to them. ‘Here! We can get down here. Sméagol
went this way once: I went this way, hiding from Orcs.’
He led the way, and following him the hobbits climbed
down into the gloom. It was not difficult, for the rift was at
this point only some fifteen feet deep and about a dozen
across. There was running water at the bottom: it was in
fact the bed of one of the many small rivers that trickled
down from the hills to feed the stagnant pools and mires
beyond. Gollum turned to the right, southward more or
less, and splashed along with his feet in the shallow stony
stream. He seemed greatly delighted to feel the water, and
chuckled to himself, sometimes even croaking in a sort of
song.
The cold hard lands
they bites our hands,
they gnaws our feet.