At last Bilbo got up and walked with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall. The tunnel seemed endless. On and on he went, and down and down; and still he heard no sound of anything. Suddenly he got into water! It was icy cold. The sword was hardly shining at all. He stopped, and he could hear, when he listened hard, drops dripping from an unseen roof into the water below.
“So it is a pool or a lake, and not an underground river,” he thought. Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature. He had two big round pale eyes in his thin face. He had a little boat, and he rowed quietly on the lake; for it was a lake, wide and deep and deadly cold. He looked for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers. He liked meat too.
Actually Gollum lived on a slimy island of rock in the middle of the lake. He was watching Bilbo now from the distance with his pale eyes like telescopes. Gollum got into his boat and moved from the island, while Bilbo was sitting and thinking. Suddenly Gollum came up to the hobbit.
Bilbo jumped nearly out of his skin when he suddenly saw the pale eyes looking at him.
“Who are you?” the hobbit said, holding his dagger in front of him.
“And you?” whispered Gollum.
“I am Mr Bilbo Baggins. I have lost the dwarves and I have lost the wizard, and I don’t know where I am.”
“What have you got in your hands?” said Gollum, looking at the sword, which he did not quite like.
“A sword which came out of Gondolin!”
“Well,” said Gollum, and became quite polite, “perhaps you like riddles. Let’s play.”
“Very well,” agreed Bilbo. “You ask first,” he said, because he had not had time to think of a riddle.
So Gollum hissed:
“Easy!” said Bilbo. “It’s a mountain, I suppose.”
“Was it so easy? Let’s have a real competition! If I ask, and you don’t answer, I will eat you. If you ask me, and I don’t answer, then I will do what you want, okay? I will show you the way out, yes!”
“All right!” said Bilbo.
It was rather an old riddle, and Gollum knew the answer:
“Teeth! Teeth!” Then he asked another riddle:
Poor Bilbo sat in the dark thinking of all the horrible names of all the giants and ogres he had ever heard, but not one of them had done all these things. He had a feeling that the answer was quite different and that he should know it, but he could not think of it. He began to get frightened, and that is bad for thinking. He wanted to shout out: “Give me more time! Give me time!” But all that came out was:
“Time! Time!”
Bilbo was saved by chance, because that was the correct answer.
Gollum was disappointed once more; and now he was getting angry, and also tired of the game. It had made him very hungry indeed. He sat down in the dark by Bilbo.
“Now ask me a question,” said Gollum. But Bilbo simply could not think of any question because he was really nervous. Bilbo pinched himself and slapped himself; he gripped on his little sword; he even felt in his pocket with his other hand. There he found the ring he had picked up in the passage and forgotten about.
“What have I got in my pocket?” he said aloud. He was talking to himself, but Gollum thought it was a riddle, and he was terribly upset.
“Not fair![32] Not fair!” he hissed.
Bilbo just didn’t know what to ask so he repeated louder, “What have I got in my pocket?”
“Give me three guesses, three guesses” hissed Gollum.
“Very well! Guess!” said Bilbo.
“Hands!” said Gollum.
“Wrong,” said Bilbo, who had luckily just taken his hand out again. “Guess again!”
Gollum thought of all the things he kept in his own pockets: fish-bones, goblins’ teeth, wet shells, a bit of bat-wing, and other nasty things. He tried to think what other people kept in their pockets.
“Knife!” he said at last.
“Wrong!” said Bilbo. “Last guess!”
Now Gollum hissed and rocked himself backwards and forwards; but still he did not dare to waste his last guess.
“Come on!” said Bilbo. “I am waiting!” He tried to sound bold and cheerful. “Time’s up!” he said.
“String!” shrieked Gollum.
“Wrong,” cried Bilbo very much relieved; and he jumped at once to his feet, put his back to the nearest wall, and held out his little sword. He knew, of course, that the riddle-game was sacred. But he felt he could not trust this slimy thing to keep any promise.
But Gollum did not attack him. He could see the sword in Bilbo’s hand. He sat still, shivering and whispering. At last Bilbo could wait no longer.
“Well?” he said. “What about your promise? I want to go. You must show me the way.”
“Certainly, but first I must go and get some things to help me,” answered Gollum.
“Well, hurry up!” said Bilbo.
He thought that Gollum was not going to come back. But he was wrong. Gollum wanted to come back. He was angry now and hungry. And he was a wicked creature, and already he had a plan. In his hiding-place Gollum kept one very beautiful thing. He had a gold ring. He wanted it because it was a magic ring, and if you put that ring on your finger, you were invisible. Gollum hid it in a hole in the rock on his island. And sometimes he put it on, when he was very, very hungry, and tired of fish. Then he moved silently along dark passages looking for stray goblins to catch and eat them.
“I will be quite safe,” Gollum whispered to himself. “He won’t see me, and his little sword will be useless.” That was Gollum’s plan.
Bilbo waited a little; for he had no idea how to find his way out alone. Suddenly he heard a scream. Gollum was cursing in the darkness. He was on his island, trying to find his ring.
“What’s the matter?” Bilbo called. “What have you lost?”
“You mustn’t ask me,” shrieked Gollum. “Not your business, no! It’s lost!”
“Well, so am I,” cried Bilbo, “Come and let me out, and then look for your thing!”
Suddenly out of the gloom came a loud hiss. “What have you got in your pockets? Tell me now.”
“But I asked you first. What have you lost? Tell me that!” said Bilbo.
“What have you got in your pockets?” hissed Gollum again. Suspicion grew in Gollum’s mind, so he was in his boat again, paddling quickly back to the shore. He was in rage and Bilbo’s sword couldn’t stop him now. When the hobbit saw Gollum, he realized that Gollum was going to kill him. So he turned and ran back up the dark passage down which he had come, keeping close to the wall and feeling it with his left hand. “What have you got in your pockets?” he heard the hiss loud behind him.
“What have I got?” he said to himself and put his left hand in his pocket. The ring felt very cold as it quietly slipped on to his forefinger.
The hiss was close behind him. He turned now and saw Gollum’s eyes like small green lamps. Suddenly Bilbo fell down on the floor with his little sword under him.
In a moment Gollum was on him. But before Bilbo could do anything, Gollum passed by, taking no notice of him. Why? Bilbo slowly got up; he didn’t know where to go. Perhaps if he followed Gollum, he could finally escape. So Bilbo decided to walk after Gollum quietly.
“Curse it! Curse it! Curse it!” hissed Gollum. “Curse the Baggins! What has he got in his pockets? Oh I guess he’s found my ring.” Bilbo was listening carefully.
Suddenly Gollum sat down and began to weep. Bilbo stopped. After a while Gollum began to talk to himself.
“The Baggins has got my ring; if he puts it on his finger, he will be invisible. But he doesn’t know that. He is going to the back door now. Anyway, the goblins will catch him then. He can’t get out that way.”
And then Gollum got up and walked quickly. Bilbo hurried after him. Now he knew that the ring made him invisible! Soon they came to places where side-passages opened, this way and that. Gollum began at once to count them.
“Seven right, yes. Six left, yes!” he whispered. “This is it. This is the way to the back-door. Here’s the passage!” He looked in, and stopped. “But I can’t go in. Goblins are there. I smell them. I must wait here, wait a bit and see.”
So Gollum had brought Bilbo to the way out after all, but Bilbo could not get in! There was Gollum sitting right in the opening.[33]