towers

596 the two towers
now outside the circle: there was nothing between them and
escape.
‘Now,’ said Merry, ‘if only we had our legs and hands free,
we might get away. But I can’t touch the knots, and I can’t
bite them.’
‘No need to try,’ said Pippin. ‘I was going to tell you: I’ve
managed to free my hands. These loops are only left for
show. You’d better have a bit of lembas first.’
He slipped the cords off his wrists, and fished out a packet.
The cakes were broken, but good, still in their leaf-wrappings.
The hobbits each ate two or three pieces. The taste brought
back to them the memory of fair faces, and laughter, and
wholesome food in quiet days now far away. For a while they
ate thoughtfully, sitting in the dark, heedless of the cries and
sounds of battle nearby. Pippin was the first to come back to
the present.
‘We must be off,’ he said. ‘Half a moment!’ Grishnákh’s
sword was lying close at hand, but it was too heavy and
clumsy for him to use; so he crawled forward, and finding
the body of the goblin he drew from its sheath a long sharp
knife. With this he quickly cut their bonds.
‘Now for it!’ he said. ‘When we’ve warmed up a bit, perhaps
we shall be able to stand again, and walk. But in any
case we had better start by crawling.’
They crawled. The turf was deep and yielding, and that
helped them; but it seemed a long slow business. They gave
the watch-fire a wide berth, and wormed their way forward
bit by bit, until they came to the edge of the river, gurgling
away in the black shadows under its deep banks. Then they
looked back.
The sounds had died away. Evidently Mauhúr and his
‘lads’ had been killed or driven off. The Riders had returned
to their silent ominous vigil. It would not last very much
longer. Already the night was old. In the East, which had
remained unclouded, the sky was beginning to grow pale.
‘We must get under cover,’ said Pippin, ‘or we shall be
seen. It will not be any comfort to us, if these riders discover