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except Balin. Long after the others had stopped talking and shut their
eyes, he kept on muttering and chuckling to himself.
 Gollum! Well I m blest! So that s how he sneaked past me is it?
Now I know! Just crept quietly along did you, Mr. Baggins? Buttons all
over the doorstep? Good old Bilbo-Bilbo-Bilbo-bo-bo-bo  And then he
fell asleep, and there was complete silence for a long time.
All of a sudden Dwalin opened an eye, and looked round at them.
 Where is Thorin? he asked. It was a terrible shock. Of course there were
only thirteen of them, twelve dwarves and the hobbit. Where indeed was
Thorin? They wondered what evil fate had befallen him, magic or dark
monsters; and shuddered as they lay lost in the forest. There they dropped
off one by one into uncomfortable sleep full of horrible dreams, as evening
wore to black night; and there we must leave them for the present, too
sick and weary to set guards or take turns watching.
Thorin had been caught much faster than they had. You remember
Bilbo falling like a log into sleep, as he stepped into a circle of light? The
next time it had been Thorin who stepped forward, and as the lights went
out he fell like a stone enchanted. All the noise of the dwarves lost in the
night, their cries as the spiders caught them and bound them, and all the
sounds of the battle next day, had passed over him unheard. Then the
Wood-elves had come to him, and bound him, and carried him away. The
feasting people were Wood-elves, of course. These are not wicked folk. If
they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. Though their magic was strong,
even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of
the West, and were more dangerous and less wise. For most of them
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(together with their scattered relations in the hills and mountains) were
descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West.
There the Light-elves and the Deep-elves and the Sea-elves went and
lived for ages, and grew fairer and wiser and more learned, and invented
their magic and their cunning craft, in the making of beautiful and
marvellous things, before some came back into the Wide World. In the
Wide World the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon
but loved best the stars; and they wandered in the great forests that grew
tall in lands that are now lost. They dwelt most often by the edges of the
woods, from which they could escape at times to hunt, or to ride and run
over the open lands by moonlight or starlight; and after the coming of
Men they took ever more and more to the gloaming and the dusk. Still
elves they were and remain, and that is Good People.
In a great cave some miles within the edge of Mirkwood on its
eastern side there lived at this time their greatest king. Before his huge
doors of stone a river ran out of the heights of the forest and flowed on
and out into the marshes at the feet of the high wooded lands. This great
cave, from which countless smaller ones opened out on every side, wound
far underground and had many passages and wide halls; but it was lighter
and more wholesome than any goblin-dwelling, and neither so deep nor
so dangerous. In fact the subjects of the king mostly lived and hunted in
the open woods, and had houses or huts on the ground and in the branches.
The beeches were their favourite trees. The king s cave was his palace,
and the strong place of his treasure, and the fortress of his people against
their enemies.
It was also the dungeon of his prisoners. So to the cave they dragged
Thorin-not too gently, for they did not love dwarves, and thought he was
an enemy. In ancient days they had had wars with some of the dwarves,
whom they accused of stealing their treasure. It is only fair to say that the
dwarves gave a different account, and said that they only took what was
their due, for the elf-king had bar- gained with them to shape his raw gold
and silver, and had afterwards refused to give them their pay. If the elf-
king had a weakness it was for treasure, especially for silver and white
gems; and though his hoard was rich, he was ever eager for more, since
he had not yet as great a treasure as other elf-lords of old. His people
neither mined nor worked metals or jewels, nor did they bother much
with trade or with tilling the earth. All this was well known to every dwarf,
though Thorin s family had had nothing to do with the old quarrel I have
spoken of. Consequently Thorin was angry at their treatment of him, when
they took their spell off him and he came to his senses; and also he was
determined that no word of gold or jewels should be dragged out of him.
The king looked sternly on Thorin, when he was brought before
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him, and asked him many questions. But Thorin would only say that he
was starving.
 Why did you and your folk three times try to attack my people at
their merrymaking? asked the king.
 We did not attack them, answered Thorin;  we came to beg,
because we were starving.
 Where are your friends now, and what are they doing?
 I don t know, but I expect starving in the forest.
 What were you doing in the forest?
 Looking for food and drink, because we were starving.
 But what brought you into the forest at all? asked the king angrily.
At that Thorin shut his mouth and would not say another word.
 Very well! said the king.  Take him away and keep him safe, until
he feels inclined to tell the truth, even if he waits a hundred years. 
Then the elves put thongs on him, and shut him in one of the
inmost caves with strong wooden doors, and left him. They gave him
food and drink, plenty of both, if not very fine; for Wood-elves were not
goblins, and were reasonably well-behaved even to their worst enemies,
when they captured them. The giant spiders were the only living things
that they had no mercy upon.
There in the king s dungeon poor Thorin lay; and after he had got
over his thankfulness for bread and meat and water, he began to wonder
what had become of his unfortunate friends. It was not very long before
he discovered; but that belongs to the next chapter and the beginning of
another adventure in which the hobbit again showed his usefulness.
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CHAPTER 9. BARRELS OUT OF BOND
The day after the battle with the spiders Bilbo and the dwarves
made one last despairing effort to find a way out before they died of
hunger and thirst. They got up and staggered on in the direction which
eight out of the thirteen of them guessed to be the one in which the path
lay; but they never found out if they were right. Such day as there ever
was in the forest was fading once more into the blackness of night, when
suddenly out sprang the light of many torches all round them, like hundreds
of red stars. Out leaped Wood-elves with their bows and spears and called
the dwarves to halt.
There was no thought of a fight. Even if the dwarves had not been
in such a state that they were actually glad to be captured, their small
knives, the only weapons they had, would have been of no use against
the arrows of the elves that could hit a bird s eye in the dark. So they
simply stopped dead and sat down and waited-all except Bilbo, who popped
on his ring and slipped quickly to one side.
That is why, when the elves bound the dwarves in a long line, one
behind the other, and counted them, they never found or counted the
hobbit. Nor did they hear or feel him trotting along well behind their
torch-light as they led off their prisoners into the forest. Each dwarf was
blindfold, but that did not make much difference, for even Bilbo with the
use of his eyes could not see where they were going, and neither he nor
the others knew where they had started from anyway. Bilbo had all he
could do to keep up with the torches, for the elves were making the
dwarves go as fast as ever they could, sick and weary as they were. The
king had ordered them to make haste. Suddenly the torches stopped, and
the hobbit had just time to catch them up before they began to cross the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]