The Hobbit

small, and now he glared at it in suspicion
     and wondered why he had never blocked it up. Of late he had half fancied he had caught the dim echoes of a knocking sound
     from far above that came down through it to his lair. He stirred and stretched forth his neck to sniff. Then he missed the
     cup!
    Thieves! Fire! Murder! Such a thing had not happened since first he came to the Mountain! His rage passes description—the
     sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long
     had but have never before used or wanted. His fire belched forth, the hall smoked, he shook the mountain-roots. He thrust
     his head in vain at the little hole, and then coiling his length together, roaring like thunder underground, he sped from
     his deep lair through its great door, out into the huge passages of the mountain-palace and up towards the Front Gate.
    To hunt the whole mountain till he had caught the thief and had torn and trampled him was his one thought. He issued from
     the Gate, the waters rose in fierce whistling steam, and up he soared blazing into the air and settled on the mountain-top
     in a spout of green and scarlet flame. The dwarves heard the awful rumour of his flight, and they crouched against the walls of the grassy terrace cringing under boulders, hoping somehow to
     escape the frightful eyes of the hunting dragon.
    There they would have all been killed, if it had not been for Bilbo once again. “Quick! Quick!” he gasped. “The door! The
     tunnel! It’s no good here.”
    Roused by these words they were just about to creep inside the tunnel when Bifur gave a cry: “My cousins! Bombur and Bofur—we
     have forgotten them, they are down in the valley!”
    “They will be slain, and all our ponies too, and all our stores lost,” moaned the others. “We can do nothing.”
    “Nonsense!” said Thorin, recovering his dignity. “We cannot leave them. Get inside Mr. Baggins and Balin, and you two Fili
     and Kili—the dragon shan’t have all of us. Now you others, where are the ropes? Be quick!”
    Those were perhaps the worst moments they had been through yet. The horrible sounds of Smaug’s anger were echoing in the stony
     hollows far above; at any moment he might come blazing down or fly whirling round and find them there, near the perilous cliff’s
     edge hauling madly on the ropes. Up came Bofur, and still all was safe. Up came Bombur, puffing and blowing while the ropes
     creaked, and still all was safe. Up came some tools and bundles of stores, and then danger was upon them.
    A whirring noise was heard. A red light touched the points of standing rocks. The dragon came.
    They had barely time to fly back to the tunnel, pulling and dragging in their bundles, when Smaug came hurtling from the North, licking the mountain-sides with flame, beating his great wings with a noise like a roaring wind.
     His hot breath shrivelled the grass before the door, and drove in through the crack they had left and scorched them as they
     lay hid. Flickering fires leaped up and black rock-shadows danced. Then darkness fell as he passed again. The ponies screamed
     with terror, burst their ropes and galloped wildly off. The dragon swooped and turned to pursue them, and was gone.
    “That’ll be the end of our poor beasts!” said Thorin. “Nothing can escape Smaug once he sees it. Here we are and here we shall
     have to stay, unless any one fancies tramping the long open miles back to the river with Smaug on the watch!”
    It was not a pleasant thought! They crept further down the tunnel, and there they lay and shivered though it was warm and
     stuffy, until dawn came pale through the crack of the door. Every now and again through the night they could hear the roar
     of the flying dragon grow and then pass and fade, as he hunted round and round the mountain-sides.
    He guessed from the ponies, and from the traces of the camps he had discovered, that men had come up from the river and the
     lake and had scaled the mountain-side from the valley where the ponies had been standing; but the door withstood his searching
     eye, and the little high-walled bay had kept out his fiercest flames. Long he had hunted in vain till the dawn chilled his
     wrath and he went back to his golden couch to sleep—and to gather new strength. He would not forget or forgive the theft,
     not if a thousand years turned him to smouldering stone, but he could afford to wait. Slow