The Lord of the Rings Page 0,190

I can only read went 5 days ago. The last lines run the pool is up to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin. We cannot get out. The end comes, and then drums, drums in the deep. I wonder what that means. The last thing written is in a trailing scrawl of elf-letters: they are coming. There is nothing more.’ Gandalf paused and stood in silent thought.

A sudden dread and a horror of the chamber fell on the Company. ‘We cannot get out,’ muttered Gimli. ‘It was well for us that the pool had sunk a little, and that the Watcher was sleeping down at the southern end.’

Gandalf raised his head and looked round. ‘They seem to have made a last stand by both doors,’ he said; ‘but there were not many left by that time. So ended the attempt to retake Moria! It was valiant but foolish. The time is not come yet. Now, I fear, we must say farewell to Balin son of Fundin. Here he must lie in the halls of his fathers. We will take this book, the Book of Mazarbul, and look at it more closely later. You had better keep it, Gimli, and take it back to Dáin, if you get a chance. It will interest him, though it will grieve him deeply. Come, let us go! The morning is passing.’

‘Which way shall we go?’ asked Boromir.

‘Back to the hall,’ answered Gandalf. ‘But our visit to this room has not been in vain. I now know where we are. This must be, as Gimli says, the Chamber of Mazarbul; and the hall must be the twenty-first of the North-end. Therefore we should leave by the eastern arch of the hall, and bear right and south, and go downwards. The Twenty-first Hall should be on the Seventh Level, that is six above the level of the Gates. Come now! Back to the hall!’

Gandalf had hardly spoken these words, when there came a great noise: a rolling Boom that seemed to come from depths far below, and to tremble in the stone at their feet. They sprang towards the door in alarm. Doom, doom it rolled again, as if huge hands were turning the very caverns of Moria into a vast drum. Then there came an echoing blast: a great horn was blown in the hall, and answering horns and harsh cries were heard further off. There was a hurrying sound of many feet.

‘They are coming!’ cried Legolas.

‘We cannot get out,’ said Gimli.

‘Trapped!’ cried Gandalf. ‘Why did I delay? Here we are, caught, just as they were before. But I was not here then. We will see what—’

Doom, doom came the drum-beat and the walls shook.

‘Slam the doors and wedge them!’ shouted Aragorn. ‘And keep your packs on as long as you can: we may get a chance to cut our way out yet.’

‘No!’ said Gandalf. ‘We must not get shut in. Keep the east door ajar! We will go that way, if we get a chance.’

Another harsh horn-call and shrill cries rang out. Feet were coming down the corridor. There was a ring and clatter as the Company drew their swords. Glamdring shone with a pale light, and Sting glinted at the edges. Boromir set his shoulder against the western door.

‘Wait a moment! Do not close it yet!’ said Gandalf. He sprang forward to Boromir’s side and drew himself up to his full height.

‘Who comes hither to disturb the rest of Balin Lord of Moria?’ he cried in a loud voice.

There was a rush of hoarse laughter, like the fall of sliding stones into a pit; amid the clamour a deep voice was raised in command. Doom, boom, doom went the drums in the deep.

With a quick movement Gandalf stepped before the narrow opening of the door and thrust forward his staff. There was a dazzling flash that lit the chamber and the passage outside. For an instant the wizard looked out. Arrows whined and whistled down the corridor as he sprang back.

‘There are Orcs, very many of them,’ he said. ‘And some are large and evil: black Uruks of Mordor. For the moment they are hanging back, but there is something else there. A great cave-troll, I think, or more than one. There is no hope of escape that way.’

‘And no hope at all, if they come at the other door as well,’ said Boromir.

‘There is no sound outside here yet,’ said Aragorn, who was standing by the eastern