"You shall have it, if there is time," said Merry. "But first-if you have finished eating-you shall fill your pipes and light up. And then for a little while we can pretend that we are all back safe at Bree again, or in Rivendell."

He produced a small leather bag full of tobacco. "We have heaps of it," he said;"and you can all pack as much as you wish, when we go. We did some salvage-work this morning, Pippin and I. There are lots of things floating about. It was Pippin who found two small barrels, washed up out of some cellar or store-house, I suppose. When we opened them, we found they were filled with this: as fine a pipe-weed as you could wish for, and quite unspoilt."

Gimli took some and rubbed it in his palms and sniffed it. "It feels good, and it smells good," he said.

"It is good!" said Merry. "My dear Gimli, it is Longbottom Leaf! There were the Hornblower brandmarks on the barrels, as plain as plain. How it came here, I can't imagine. For Saruman's private use. I fancy. I never knew that it went so far abroad. But it comes in handy now?"

"It would," said Gimli, 'if I had a pipe to go with it. Alas, I lost mine in Moria, or before. Is there no pipe in all your plunder?"

"No, I am afraid not," said Merry. "We have not found any, not even here in the guardrooms. Saruman kept this dainty to himself. it seems. And I don't think it would be any use knocking on the doors of Orthanc to beg a pipe of him! We shall have to share pipes. as good friends must at a pinch."

"Half a moment!" said Pippin. Putting his hand inside the breast of his jacket he pulled out a little soft wallet on a string. "I keep a treasure or two near my skin, as precious as Rings to me. Here's one: my old wooden pipe. And here's another: an unused one. I have carried it a long way,, though I don't know why. I never really expected to find any pipe-weed on the journey, when my own ran out. But now it comes in useful after all." He held up a small pipe with a wide flattened bowl, and handed it to Gimli. "Does that settle the score between us?" he said. "Settle it!" cried Gimli. "Most noble hobbit, it leaves me deep in your debt."

"Well, I am going back into the open air, to see what the wind and sky are doing!" said Legolas.

"We will come with you," said Aragorn.

They went out and seated themselves upon the piled stones before the gateway. They could see far down into the valley now; the mists were lifting and floating away upon the breeze.

"Now let us take our ease here for a little!" said Aragorn. "We will sit on the edge of ruin and talk, as Gandalf says, while he is busy elsewhere. I feel a weariness such as I have seldom felt before." He wrapped his grey cloak about him, hiding his mail-shirt, and stretched out his long legs. Then he lay back and sent from his lips a thin stream of smoke.

"Look!" said Pippin. "Strider the Ranger has come back!"

"He has never been away," said Aragorn. "I am Strider and Dunadan too, and I belong both to Gondor and the North."

They smoked in silence for a while, and the sun shone on them; slanting into the valley from among white clouds high in the West. Legolas lay still, looking up at the sun and sky with steady eyes, and singing softly to himself. At last he sat up. "Come now!" he said. "Time wears on, and the mists are blowing away, or would if you strange folk did not wreathe yourselves in smoke. What of the tale?"

"Well, my tale begins with waking up in the dark and finding myself all strung-up in an orc-camp," said Pippin. "Let me see, what is today?"

"The fifth of March in the Shire-reckoning," said Aragorn. Pippin made some calculations on his fingers. "Only nine days ago!" he said.*1 "It seems a year since we were caught. Well, though half of it was like a bad dream, I reckon that three very horrible days followed. Merry will correct me, if I forget anything important: I am not going into details: the whips and the filth and stench and all that; it does not bear remembering." With that he plunged into an account of Boromir's last fight and the orc-march from Emyn Muil to the Forest. The others nodded as the various points were fitted in with their guesses.

"Here are some treasures that you let fall," said Aragorn. "You will be glad to have them back." He loosened his belt from under his cloak and took from it the two sheathed knives.

"Well!" said Merry. "I never expected to see those again! I marked a few orcs with mine; but Ugluk took them from us. How he glared! At first I thought he was going to stab me, but he threw the things away as if they burned him."

"And here also is your brooch, Pippin," said Aragorn. "I have kept it safe, for it is a very precious thing."

"I know," said Pippin. "It was a wrench to let it go; but what else could I do?"

"Nothing else," answered Aragorn. "One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters. You did rightly."

"The cutting of the bands on your wrists, that was smart work!" said Gimli. "Luck served you there; but you seized your chance with both hands, one might say."

"And set us a pretty riddle," said Legolas. "I wondered if you had grown wings!"

"Unfortunately not," said Pippin. "But you did not know about Grishnakh." He shuddered and said no more, leaving Merry to tell of those last horrible moments: the pawing hands, the hot breath, and the dreadful strength of Grishnakh's hairy arms.

"All this about the Orcs of Barad-dur, Lugburz as they call it, makes me uneasy," said Aragorn. "The Dark Lord already knew too much and his servants also; and Grishnakh evidently sent some message across the River after the quarrel. The Red Eye will be looking towards Isengard. But Saruman at any rate is in a cleft stick of his own cutting."

"Yes, whichever side wins, his outlook is poor," said Merry. "Things began to go all wrong for him from the moment his Orcs set foot in Rohan."

"We caught a glimpse of the old villain, or so Gandalf hints," said Gimli. "On the edge of the Forest."

"When was that?" asked Pippin.

"Five nights ago," said Aragorn.

"Let me see," said Merry:"five nights ago-now we come to a part of the story you know nothing about. We met Treebeard that morning after the battle; and that night we were at Wellinghall, one of his ent-houses. The next morning we went to Entmoot, a gathering of Ents, that is, and the queerest thing I have ever seen in my life. It lasted all that day and the next; and we spent the nights with an Ent called Quickbeam. And then late in the afternoon in the third day of their moot, the Ents suddenly blew up. It was amazing. The Forest had felt as tense as if a thunderstorm was brewing inside it: then all at once it exploded. I wish you could have heard their song as they marched."

"If Saruman had heard it, he would be a hundred miles away by now, even if he had had to run on his own legs," said Pippin.