towers

the passage of the marshes 821
battle. Tall Men with long swords, and terrible Elves, and
Orcses shrieking. They fought on the plain for days and
months at the Black Gates. But the Marshes have grown since
then, swallowed up the graves; always creeping, creeping.’
‘But that is an age and more ago,’ said Sam. ‘The Dead
can’t be really there! Is it some devilry hatched in the Dark
Land?’
‘Who knows? Sméagol doesn’t know,’ answered Gollum.
‘You cannot reach them, you cannot touch them. We tried
once, yes, precious. I tried once; but you cannot reach them.
Only shapes to see, perhaps, not to touch. No precious! All
dead.’
Sam looked darkly at him and shuddered again, thinking
that he guessed why Sméagol had tried to touch them. ‘Well,
I don’t want to see them,’ he said. ‘Never again! Can’t we get
on and get away?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Gollum. ‘But slowly, very slowly. Very
carefully! Or hobbits go down to join the Dead ones and light
little candles. Follow Sméagol! Don’t look at lights!’
He crawled away to the right, seeking for a path round the
mere. They came close behind, stooping, often using their
hands even as he did. ‘Three precious little Gollums in a row
we shall be, if this goes on much longer,’ thought Sam.
At last they came to the end of the black mere, and they
crossed it, perilously, crawling or hopping from one treacherous
island tussock to another. Often they floundered, stepping
or falling hands-first into waters as noisome as a
cesspool, till they were slimed and fouled almost up to their
necks and stank in one another’s nostrils.
It was late in the night when at length they reached firmer
ground again. Gollum hissed and whispered to himself, but
it appeared that he was pleased: in some mysterious way, by
some blended sense of feel, and smell, and uncanny memory
for shapes in the dark, he seemed to know just where he was
again, and to be sure of his road ahead.
‘Now on we go!’ he said. ‘Nice hobbits! Brave hobbits!