This made me feel ashamed of myself, and the shame took off my thoughts from what I had endured; but I could do nothing but lie aching and panting on the rocks for a long time, while Amroth sat beside me in silence.

“Are you vexed?” I said after a long pause.

“No, no, not vexed,” said Amroth, “but I am not sure whether I have not made a mistake.  It was I who urged that you might go forward, and I confess I am disappointed at the result.  You are softer than I thought.”

“Indeed I am not,” I said.  “I will go down the rocks and come up again, if that will satisfy you.”

“Come, that is a little better,” said Amroth, “and I will tell you now that you did well—­better indeed at the time than I expected.  You did the thing in very good time, as we used to say.”

By this time I felt very drowsy, and suddenly dropped off into a sleep—­such a deep and dreamless sleep, to descend into which was like flinging oneself into a river-pool by a bubbling weir on a hot and dusty day of summer.

I awoke suddenly with a pressure on my arm, and, waking up with a sense of renewed freshness, I saw Amroth looking at me anxiously.  “Do not say anything,” he said.  “Can you manage to hobble a few steps?  If you cannot, I will get some help, and we shall be all right—­but there may be an unpleasant encounter, and it is best avoided.”  I scrambled to my feet, and Amroth helped me a little higher up the rocks, looking carefully into the mist as he did so.  Close behind us was a steep rock with ledges.  Amroth flung himself upon them, with an agile scramble or two.  Then he held his hand down, lying on the top; I took it, and, stiffened as I was, I contrived to get up beside him.  “That is right,” he said in a whisper.  “Now lie here quietly, don’t speak a word, and just watch.”

I lay, with a sense of something evil about.  Presently I heard the sound of voices in the mist to the left of us; and in an instant there loomed out of the mist the form of a man, who was immediately followed by three others.  They were different from all the other spirits I had yet seen—­tall, lean, dark men, very spare and strong.  They looked carefully about them, mostly glancing down the cliff, and sometimes conferred together.  They were dressed in close-fitting dark clothes, which seemed as if made out of some kind of skin or untanned leather, and their whole air was sinister and terrifying.  They passed quite close beneath us, so that I saw the bald head of one of them, who carried a sort of hook in his hands.

When they got to the place where my climb had ended, they stopped and examined the stones carefully:  one of them clambered a few feet down the cliff.  Then he came back and seemed to make a brief report, after which they appeared undecided what to do; they even looked up at the rock where we lay; but while they did this, another man, very similar, came hurriedly out of the mist, said something to the group, and they