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mount doom 1223
time, but it didn’t quite. A steady pace for a few more miles,
and then a rest.’
He was taking a far greater risk than he knew; but Frodo
was too much occupied with his burden and with the struggle
in his mind to debate, and almost too hopeless to care. They
climbed on to the causeway and trudged along, down the
hard cruel road that led to the Dark Tower itself. But their
luck held, and for the rest of that day they met no living or
moving thing; and when night fell they vanished into the
darkness of Mordor. All the land now brooded as at the
coming of a great storm: for the Captains of the West had
passed the Cross-roads and set flames in the deadly fields of
Imlad Morgul.
So the desperate journey went on, as the Ring went south
and the banners of the kings rode north. For the hobbits each
day, each mile, was more bitter than the one before, as their
strength lessened and the land became more evil. They met
no enemies by day. At times by night, as they cowered or
drowsed uneasily in some hiding beside the road, they heard
cries and the noise of many feet or the swift passing of some
cruelly ridden steed. But far worse than all such perils was
the ever-approaching threat that beat upon them as they
went: the dreadful menace of the Power that waited, brooding
in deep thought and sleepless malice behind the dark veil
about its Throne. Nearer and nearer it drew, looming blacker,
like the oncoming of a wall of night at the last end of the
world.
There came at last a dreadful nightfall; and even as the
Captains of the West drew near to the end of the living lands,
the two wanderers came to an hour of blank despair. Four
days had passed since they had escaped from the orcs, but
the time lay behind them like an ever-darkening dream. All
this last day Frodo had not spoken, but had walked halfbowed,
often stumbling, as if his eyes no longer saw the way
before his feet. Sam guessed that among all their pains he
bore the worst, the growing weight of the Ring, a burden on
the body and a torment to his mind. Anxiously Sam had