towers

812 the two towers
ain’t no fish, I’ll wager – supposing as he could catch us
napping. Well, he won’t: not Sam Gamgee for one.’
They stumbled along in the dark winding gully for a long
time, or so it seemed to the tired feet of Frodo and Sam. The
gully turned eastward, and as they went on it broadened and
got gradually shallower. At last the sky above grew faint with
the first grey of morning. Gollum had shown no signs of
tiring, but now he looked up and halted.
‘Day is near,’ he whispered, as if Day was something that
might overhear him and spring on him. ‘Sméagol will stay
here: I will stay here, and the Yellow Face won’t see me.’
‘We should be glad to see the Sun,’ said Frodo, ‘but we
will stay here: we are too tired to go any further at present.’
‘You are not wise to be glad of the Yellow Face,’ said
Gollum. ‘It shows you up. Nice sensible hobbits stay with
Sméagol. Orcs and nasty things are about. They can see a
long way. Stay and hide with me!’
The three of them settled down to rest at the foot of the
rocky wall of the gully. It was not much more than a tall
man’s height now, and at its base there were wide flat shelves
of dry stone; the water ran in a channel on the other side.
Frodo and Sam sat on one of the flats, resting their backs.
Gollum paddled and scrabbled in the stream.
‘We must take a little food,’ said Frodo. ‘Are you hungry,
Sméagol? We have very little to share, but we will spare you
what we can.’
At the word hungry a greenish light was kindled in Gollum’s
pale eyes, and they seemed to protrude further than ever
from his thin sickly face. For a moment he relapsed into his
old Gollum-manner. ‘We are famisshed, yes famisshed we
are, precious,’ he said. ‘What is it they eats? Have they nice
fisshes?’ His tongue lolled out between his sharp yellow teeth,
licking his colourless lips.
‘No, we have got no fish,’ said Frodo. ‘We have only got
this’ – he held up a wafer of lembas – ‘and water, if the water
here is fit to drink.’