towers

the passage of the marshes 815
‘Here, what are you doing?’ cried Sam, his suspicions
coming back as soon as he saw that shape.
‘Sméagol is hungry,’ said Gollum. ‘Be back soon.’
‘Come back now!’ shouted Sam. ‘Hi! Come back!’ But
Gollum had vanished.
Frodo woke at the sound of Sam’s shout and sat up, rubbing
his eyes. ‘Hullo!’ he said. ‘Anything wrong? What’s the
time?’
‘I dunno,’ said Sam. ‘After sundown, I reckon. And he’s
gone off. Says he’s hungry.’
‘Don’t worry!’ said Frodo. ‘There’s no help for it. But he’ll
come back, you’ll see. The promise will hold yet a while. And
he won’t leave his Precious, anyway.’
Frodo made light of it when he learned that they had slept
soundly for hours with Gollum, and a very hungry Gollum
too, loose beside them. ‘Don’t think of any of your gaffer’s
hard names,’ he said. ‘You were worn out, and it has turned
out well: we are now both rested. And we have a hard road
ahead, the worst road of all.’
‘About the food,’ said Sam. ‘How long’s it going to take us
to do this job? And when it’s done, what are we going to do
then? This waybread keeps you on your legs in a wonderful
way, though it doesn’t satisfy the innards proper, as you
might say: not to my feeling anyhow, meaning no disrespect
to them as made it. But you have to eat some of it every day,
and it doesn’t grow. I reckon we’ve got enough to last, say,
three weeks or so, and that with a tight belt and a light tooth,
mind you. We’ve been a bit free with it so far.’
‘I don’t know how long we shall take to – to finish,’ said
Frodo. ‘We were miserably delayed in the hills. But Samwise
Gamgee, my dear hobbit – indeed, Sam my dearest hobbit,
friend of friends – I do not think we need give thought to
what comes after that. To do the job as you put it – what hope
is there that we ever shall? And if we do, who knows what
will come of that? If the One goes into the Fire, and we are
at hand? I ask you, Sam, are we ever likely to need bread
again? I think not. If we can nurse our limbs to bring us to