The Lord of the Rings

way ahead. Sam held his breath. Now more than half the line had gone by. Then suddenly one of the slave-drivers spied the two figures by the road-side. He flicked a whip at them and yelled: ‘Hi, you! Get up!’ They did not answer, and with a shout he halted the whole company.
    ‘Come on, you slugs!’ he cried. ‘This is no time for slouching.’ He took a step towards them, and even in the gloom he recognizedthe devices on their shields. ‘Deserting, eh?’ he snarled. ‘Or thinking of it? All your folk should have been inside Udûn before yesterday evening. You know that. Up you get and fall in, or I’ll have your numbers and report you.’
    They struggled to their feet, and keeping bent, limping like footsore soldiers, they shuffled back towards the rear of the line. ‘No, not at the rear!’ the slave-driver shouted. ‘Three files up. And stay there, or you’ll know it, when I come down the line!’ He sent his long whip-lash cracking over their heads; then with another crack and a yell he started the company off again at a brisk trot.
    It was hard enough for poor Sam, tired as he was; but for Frodo it was a torment, and soon a nightmare. He set his teeth and tried to stop his mind from thinking, and he struggled on. The stench of the sweating orcs about him was stifling, and he began to gasp with thirst. On, on they went, and he bent all his will to draw his breath and to make his legs keep going; and yet to what evil end he toiled and endured he did not dare to think. There was no hope of falling out unseen. Now and again the orc-driver fell back and jeered at them.
    ‘There now!’ he laughed, flicking at their legs. ‘Where there’s a whip there’s a will, my slugs. Hold up! I’d give you a nice freshener now, only you’ll get as much lash as your skins will carry when you come in late to your camp. Do you good. Don’t you know we’re at war?’
    They had gone some miles, and the road was at last running down a long slope into the plain, when Frodo’s strength began to give out and his will wavered. He lurched and stumbled. Desperately Sam tried to help him and hold him up, though he felt that he could himself hardly stay the pace much longer. At any moment now he knew that the end would come: his master would faint or fall, and all would be discovered, and their bitter efforts be in vain. ‘I’ll have that big slave-driving devil anyway,’ he thought.
    Then just as he was putting his hand to the hilt of his sword, there came an unexpected relief. They were out on the plain now and drawing near the entrance to Udûn. Some way in front of it, before the gate at the bridge-end, the road from the west converged with others coming from the south, and from Barad-dûr. Along all the roads troops were moving; for the Captains of the West were advancing and the Dark Lord was speeding his forces north. So it chanced that several companies came together at the road-meeting, in the dark beyond the light of the watch-fires on the wall. At once there was great jostling and cursing as each troop tried to get first to the gate and the ending of their march. Though the drivers yelled andplied their whips, scuffles broke out and some blades were drawn. A troop of heavy-armed
uruks
from Barad-dûr charged into the Durthang line and threw them into confusion.
    Dazed as he was with pain and weariness, Sam woke up, grasped quickly at his chance, and threw himself to the ground, dragging Frodo down with him. Orcs fell over them, snarling and cursing. Slowly on hand and knee the hobbits crawled away out of the turmoil, until at last unnoticed they dropped over the further edge of the road. It had a high kerb by which troop-leaders could guide themselves in black night or fog, and it was banked up some feet above the level of the open land.
    They lay still for a while. It was too dark to seek for cover, if indeed there was any to find; but Sam felt that they ought at least to get further away from the highways and out of the range of torchlight.
    ‘Come on, Mr. Frodo!’ he whispered. ‘One more crawl, and then you can lie still.’
    With a last despairing effort Frodo raised himself on his hands, and struggled on for maybe twenty yards. Then he pitched down into a shallow pit that opened unexpectedly before them, and there he lay like a dead thing.

MOUNT DOOM
     
    Sam put his ragged orc-cloak under his master’s head, and covered them both with the grey robe of Lórien; and as he did so his thoughts went