towers

journey to the cross-roads 913
of dark then, time enough for you to take us a long march, if
you know the way.’
Gollum reluctantly agreed to this, and he turned back
towards the trees, working eastward for a while along the
straggling edges of the wood. He would not rest on the
ground so near the evil road, and after some debate they all
climbed up into the crotch of a large holm-oak, whose thick
branches springing together from the trunk made a good
hiding-place and a fairly comfortable refuge. Night fell and
it grew altogether dark under the canopy of the tree. Frodo
and Sam drank a little water and ate some bread and dried
fruit, but Gollum at once curled up and went to sleep. The
hobbits did not shut their eyes.
It must have been a little after midnight when Gollum
woke up: suddenly they were aware of his pale eyes unlidded
gleaming at them. He listened and sniffed, which seemed, as
they had noticed before, his usual method of discovering the
time of night.
‘Are we rested? Have we had beautiful sleep?’ he said.
‘Let’s go!’
‘We aren’t, and we haven’t,’ growled Sam. ‘But we’ll go if
we must.’
Gollum dropped at once from the branches of the tree on
to all fours, and the hobbits followed more slowly.
As soon as they were down they went on again with Gollum
leading, eastwards, up the dark sloping land. They could see
little, for the night was now so deep that they were hardly
aware of the stems of trees before they stumbled against
them. The ground became more broken and walking was
more difficult, but Gollum seemed in no way troubled. He
led them through thickets and wastes of brambles; sometimes
round the lip of a deep cleft or dark pit, sometimes down
into black bush-shrouded hollows and out again; but if ever
they went a little downward, always the further slope was
longer and steeper. They were climbing steadily. At their first
halt they looked back, and they could dimly perceive the roofs