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Chapter 3
MOUNT DOOM
Sam put his ragged orc-cloak under his master’s head, and
covered them both with the grey robe of Lórien; and as he
did so his thoughts went out to that fair land, and to the
Elves, and he hoped that the cloth woven by their hands
might have some virtue to keep them hidden beyond all hope
in this wilderness of fear. He heard the scuffling and cries die
down as the troops passed on through the Isenmouthe. It
seemed that in the confusion and the mingling of many companies
of various kinds they had not been missed, not yet at
any rate.
Sam took a sip of water, but pressed Frodo to drink, and
when his master had recovered a little he gave him a whole
wafer of their precious waybread and made him eat it. Then,
too worn out even to feel much fear, they stretched themselves
out. They slept a little in uneasy fits; for their sweat
grew chill on them, and the hard stones bit them, and they
shivered. Out of the north from the Black Gate through
Cirith Gorgor there flowed whispering along the ground a
thin cold air.
In the morning a grey light came again, for in the high
regions the West Wind still blew, but down on the stones
behind the fences of the Black Land the air seemed almost
dead, chill and yet stifling. Sam looked up out of the hollow.
The land all about was dreary, flat and drab-hued. On the
roads nearby nothing was moving now; but Sam feared the
watchful eyes on the wall of the Isenmouthe, no more than a
furlong away northward. South-eastward, far off like a dark
standing shadow, loomed the Mountain. Smokes were pouring
from it, and while those that rose into the upper air trailed
away eastward, great rolling clouds floated down its sides and