The Hobbit

where we last saw the elf-fires.”
    It was difficult to get them to understand, what with their dizzy heads, and the shouts, and the whacking of sticks and the
     throwing of stones; but at last Bilbo felt he could delay no longer—the spiders were drawing their circle ever closer. He
     suddenly slipped on his ring, and to the great astonishment of the dwarves he vanished.
    Soon there came the sound of “Lazy Lob” and “Attercop” from among the trees away on the right. That upset the spiders greatly.
     They stopped advancing, and some went off in the direction of the voice. “Attercop” made them so angry that they lost their
     wits. Then Balin, who had grasped Bilbo’s plan better than the rest, led an attack. The dwarves huddled together in a knot,
     and sending a shower of stones they drove at the spiders on the left, and burst through the ring. Away behind them now the
     shouting and singing suddenly stopped.
    Hoping desperately that Bilbo had not been caught the dwarves went on. Not fast enough, though. They were sick and weary, and they could not go much better than a hobble and a wobble, though many of the spiders were close behind.
     Every now and then they had to turn and fight the creatures that were overtaking them; and already some spiders were in the
     trees above them and throwing down their long clinging threads.
    Things were looking pretty bad again, when suddenly Bilbo reappeared, and charged into the astonished spiders unexpectedly
     from the side.
    “Go on! Go on!” he shouted. “I will do the stinging!”
    And he did. He darted backwards and forwards, slashing at spider-threads, hacking at their legs, and stabbing at their fat
     bodies if they came too near. The spiders swelled with rage, and spluttered and frothed, and hissed out horrible curses; but
     they had become mortally afraid of Sting, and dared not come very near, now that it had come back. So curse as they would,
     their prey moved slowly but steadily away. It was a most terrible business, and seemed to take hours. But at last, just when
     Bilbo felt that he could not lift his hand for a single stroke more, the spiders suddenly gave it up, and followed them no
     more, but went back disappointed to their dark colony.
    The dwarves then noticed that they had come to the edge of a ring where elf-fires had been. Whether it was one of those they
     had seen the night before, they could not tell. But it seemed that some good magic lingered in such spots, which the spiders
     did not like. At any rate here the light was greener, and the boughs less thick and threatening, and they had a chance to
     rest and draw breath.
    There they lay for some time, puffing and panting. But very soon they began to ask questions. They had to have the whole vanishing
     business carefully explained, and the finding of the ring interested them so much that for a while they forgot their own troubles.
     Balin in particular insisted on having the Gollum story, riddles and all, told all over again, with the ring in its proper
     place. But after a time the light began to fail, and then other questions were asked. Where were they, and where was their
     path, and where was there any food, and what were they going to do next? These questions they asked over and over again, and
     it was from little Bilbo that they seemed to expect to get the answers. From which you can see that they had changed their
     opinion of Mr. Baggins very much, and had begun to have a great respect for him (as Gandalf had said they would). Indeed they
     really expected him to think of some wonderful plan for helping them, and were not merely grumbling. They knew only too well
     that they would soon all have been dead, if it had not been for the hobbit; and they thanked him many times. Some of them
     even got up and bowed right to the ground before him, though they fell over with the effort, and could not get on their legs
     again for some time. Knowing the truth about the vanishing did not lessen their opinion of Bilbo at all; for they saw that
     he had some wits, as well as luck and a magic ring—and all three are very useful possessions. In fact they praised him so
     much that Bilbo began to feel there really was something of a bold adventurer about himself after all, though he would have
     felt a lot bolder still, if there had been anything to eat.
    But there was nothing, nothing at all; and none of them were fit to go and look for anything, or to search for the lost path.
     The lost