towers

826 the two towers
poisonous mounds grew hideously clear. The sun was up,
walking among clouds and long flags of smoke, but even
the sunlight was defiled. The hobbits had no welcome for
that light; unfriendly it seemed, revealing them in their helplessness
– little squeaking ghosts that wandered among the
ash-heaps of the Dark Lord.
Too weary to go further they sought for some place where
they could rest. For a while they sat without speaking under
the shadow of a mound of slag; but foul fumes leaked out of
it, catching their throats and choking them. Gollum was the
first to get up. Spluttering and cursing he rose, and without
a word or a glance at the hobbits he crawled away on all
fours. Frodo and Sam crawled after him until they came to
a wide almost circular pit, high-banked upon the west. It was
cold and dead, and a foul sump of oily many-coloured ooze
lay at its bottom. In this evil hole they cowered, hoping in its
shadow to escape the attention of the Eye.
The day passed slowly. A great thirst troubled them, but
they drank only a few drops from their bottles – last filled in
the gully, which now as they looked back in thought seemed
to them a place of peace and beauty. The hobbits took it in
turn to watch. At first, tired as they were, neither of them
could sleep at all; but as the sun far away was climbing down
into slow moving cloud, Sam dozed. It was Frodo’s turn to
be on guard. He lay back on the slope of the pit, but that did
not ease the sense of burden that was on him. He looked up
at the smoke-streaked sky and saw strange phantoms, dark
riding shapes, and faces out of the past. He lost count of
time, hovering between sleep and waking, until forgetfulness
came over him.
Suddenly Sam woke up thinking that he heard his master
calling. It was evening. Frodo could not have called, for he
had fallen asleep, and had slid down nearly to the bottom of
the pit. Gollum was by him. For a moment Sam thought that
he was trying to rouse Frodo; then he saw that it was not so.