towers

940 the two towers
distance soon passed out of his reckoning, Sam on the right,
feeling the wall, was aware that there was an opening at the
side: for a moment he caught a faint breath of some air less
heavy, and then they passed it by.
‘There’s more than one passage here,’ he whispered with
an effort: it seemed hard to make his breath give any sound.
‘It’s as orc-like a place as ever there could be!’
After that, first he on the right, and then Frodo on the
left, passed three or four such openings, some wider, some
smaller; but there was as yet no doubt of the main way, for
it was straight, and did not turn, and still went steadily up.
But how long was it, how much more of this would they have
to endure, or could they endure? The breathlessness of the
air was growing as they climbed; and now they seemed often
in the blind dark to sense some resistance thicker than the
foul air. As they thrust forward they felt things brush against
their heads, or against their hands, long tentacles, or hanging
growths perhaps: they could not tell what they were. And still
the stench grew. It grew, until almost it seemed to them that
smell was the only clear sense left to them, and that was for
their torment. One hour, two hours, three hours: how many
had they passed in this lightless hole? Hours – days, weeks
rather. Sam left the tunnel-side and shrank towards Frodo,
and their hands met and clasped, and so together they still
went on.
At length Frodo, groping along the left-hand wall, came
suddenly to a void. Almost he fell sideways into the emptiness.
Here was some opening in the rock far wider than any
they had yet passed; and out of it came a reek so foul, and a
sense of lurking malice so intense, that Frodo reeled. And at
that moment Sam too lurched and fell forwards.
Fighting off both the sickness and the fear, Frodo gripped
Sam’s hand. ‘Up!’ he said in a hoarse breath without voice.
‘It all comes from here, the stench and the peril. Now for it!
Quick!’
Calling up his remaining strength and resolution, he
dragged Sam to his feet, and forced his own limbs to move.