‘How many are there?’ he thought. ‘Thirty or forty from the tower at least, and a lot more than that from down below, I guess. How many can I kill before they get me? They’ll see the flame of the sword, as soon as I draw it, and they’ll get me sooner or later. I wonder if any song will ever mention it: How Samwise fell in the High Pass and made a wall of bodies round his master. No, no song. Of course not, for the Ring’ll be found, and there’ll be no more songs. I can’t help it. My place is by Mr. Frodo. They must understand that – Elrond and the Council, and the great Lords and Ladies with all their wisdom. Their plans have gone wrong. I can’t be their Ring-bearer. Not without Mr. Frodo.’
But the Orcs were out of his dim sight now. He had had no time to consider himself, but now he realized that he was weary, weary almost to exhaustion: his legs would not carry him as he wished. He was too slow. The path seemed miles long. Where had they all got to in the mist?
There they were again! A good way ahead still. A cluster of figures round something lying on the ground; a few seemed to be darting this way and that, bent like dogs on a trail. He tried to make a spurt.
‘Come on, Sam!’ he said, ‘or you’ll be too late again.’ He loosened the sword in its sheath. In a minute he would draw it, and then—
There was a wild clamour, hooting and laughing, as something was lifted from the ground. ‘Ya hoi! Ya harri hoi! Up! Up!’
Then a voice shouted: ‘Now off! The quick way. Back to the Undergate! She’ll not trouble us tonight by all the signs.’ The whole band of orc-figures began to move. Four in the middle were carrying a body high on their shoulders. ‘Ya hoi!’
They had taken Frodo’s body. They were off. He could not catch them up. Still he laboured on. The Orcs reached the tunnel and were passing in. Those with the burden went first, and behind them there was a good deal of struggling and jostling. Sam came on. He drew the sword, a flicker of blue in his wavering hand, but they did not see it. Even as he came panting up, the last of them vanished into the black hole.
For a moment he stood, gasping, clutching his breast. Then he drew his sleeve across his face, wiping away the grime, and sweat, and tears. ‘Curse the filth!’ he said, and sprang after them into the darkness.
It no longer seemed very dark to him in the tunnel, rather it was as if he had stepped out of a thin mist into a heavier fog. His weariness was growing but his will hardened all the more. He thought he could see the light of torches a little way ahead, but try as he would, he could not catch them up. Orcs go fast in tunnels, and this tunnel they knew well; for in spite of Shelob they were forced to use it often as the swiftest way from the Dead City over the mountains. In what far-off time the main tunnel and the great round pit had been made, where Shelob had taken up her abode in ages past, they did not know; but many byways they had themselves delved about it on either side, so as to escape the lair in their goings to and fro on the business of their masters. Tonight they did not intend to go far down, but were hastening to find a side-passage that led back to their watch-tower on the cliff. Most of them were gleeful, delighted with what they had found and seen, and as they ran they gabbled and yammered after the fashion of their kind. Sam heard the noise of their harsh voices, flat and hard in the dead air, and he could distinguish two voices from among all the rest: they were louder, and nearer to him. The captains of the two parties seemed to be bringing up the rear, debating as they went.
‘Can’t you stop your rabble making such a racket, Shagrat?’ grunted the one. ‘We don’t want Shelob on us.’
‘Go on, Gorbag! Yours are making more than half the noise,’ said the other. ‘But let the lads play! No need to worry about Shelob for a bit, I reckon. She’s sat on a nail, it seems, and we shan’t cry about that. Didn’t you see: a nasty mess all the way back to that cursed crack of hers? If we’ve stopped it once, we’ve stopped it a hundred times. So let ’em laugh. And we’ve struck a bit of luck at last: got something that Lugbúrz wants.’
‘Lugbúrz wants it, eh? What is it, d’you think? Elvish it looked to me, but undersized. What’s the danger in a thing like that?’
‘Don’t know till we’ve had a look.’
‘Oho! So they haven’t told you what to expect? They don’t tell us all they know, do they? Not by half. But they can make mistakes, even the Top Ones can.’
‘Sh, Gorbag!’ Shagrat’s voice was lowered, so that even with his strangely sharpened hearing Sam could only just catch what was said. ‘They may, but they’ve got eyes and ears everywhere; some among my lot, as like as not. But there’s no doubt about it, they’re troubled about something. The Nazg?l down below are, by your account; and Lugbúrz is too. Something nearly slipped.’
‘Nearly, you say!’ said Gorbag.
‘All right,’ said Shagrat, ‘but we’ll talk of that later. Wait till we get to the Under-way. There’s a place there where we can talk a bit, while the lads go on.’
Shortly afterwards Sam saw the torches disappear. Then there was a rumbling noise, and just as he hurried up, a bump. As far as he could guess the Orcs had turned and gone into the very opening which Frodo and he had tried and found blocked. It was still blocked.
There seemed to be a great stone in the way, but the Orcs had got through somehow, for he could hear their voices on the other side. They were still running along, deeper and deeper into the mountain, back towards the tower. Sam felt desperate. They were carrying off his master’s body for some foul purpose and he could not follow. He thrust and pushed at the block, and he threw himself against it, but it did not yield. Then not far inside, or so he thought, he heard the two captains’ voices talking again. He stood still listening for a little, hoping perhaps to learn something useful. Perhaps Gorbag, who seemed to belong to Minas Morgul, would come out, and he could then slip in.
‘No, I don’t know,’ said Gorbag’s voice. ‘The messages go through quicker than anything could fly, as a rule. But I don’t enquire how it’s done. Safest not to. Grr! Those Nazg?l give me the creeps. And they skin the body off you as soon as look at you, and leave you all cold in the dark on the other side. But He likes ’em; they’re His favourites nowadays, so it’s no use grumbling. I tell you, it’s no game serving down in the city.’
‘You should try being up here with Shelob for company,’ said Shagrat.
‘I’d like to try somewhere where there’s none of ’em. But the war’s on now, and when that’s over things may be easier.’
‘It’s going well, they say.’
‘They would,’ grunted Gorbag. ‘We’ll see. But anyway, if it does go well, there should be a lot more room. What d’you say? – if we get a chance, you and me’ll slip off and set up somewhere on our own with a few trusty lads, somewhere where there’s good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses.’
‘Ah!’ said Shagrat. ‘Like old times.’
‘Yes,’ said Gorbag. ‘But don’t count on it. I’m not easy in my mind. As I said, the Big Bosses, ay,’ his voice sank almost to a whisper, ‘ay, even the Biggest, can make mistakes. Something nearly slipped, you say. I say, something has slipped. And we’ve got to look out. Always the poor Uruks to put slips right, and small thanks. But don’t forget: the enemies don’t love us any more than they love Him, and if they get topsides on Him, we’re done too. But see here: when were you ordered out?’
‘About an hour ago, just before you saw us. A message came: Nazg?l uneasy. Spies feared on Stairs. Double vigilance. Patrol to head of Stairs. I came at once.’
‘Bad business,’ said Gorbag. ‘See here – our Silent Watchers were uneasy more than two days ago, that I know. But my patrol wasn’t ordered out for another day, nor any message sent to Lugbúrz either: owing to the Great Signal going up, and the High Nazg?l going off to the war, and all that. And then they couldn’t get Lugbúrz to pay attention for a good while, I’m told.’
‘The Eye was busy elsewhere, I suppose,’ said Shagrat. ‘Big things going on away west, they say.’
‘I daresay,’ growled Gorbag. ‘But in the meantime enemies have got up the Stairs. And what were you up to? You’re supposed to keep watch, aren’t you, special orders or no? What are you for?’
‘That’s enough! Don’t try and teach me my job. We were awake all right. We knew there were funny things going on.’
‘Very funny!’
‘Yes, very funny: lights and shouting and all. But Shelob was on the go. My lads saw her and her Sneak.’
‘Her Sneak? What’s that?’
‘You must have seen him: little thin black fellow; like a spider himself, or perhaps mo