Therewith they shook their naked swords in the air, and fared on
eagerly, and as swiftly as the pass would have them fare. But so it
was, that when the rearward of the Host was entering the first of the
pass, and was going on the wide smooth sward, the vanward was gotten
to where there was but a narrow space clear betwixt water and cliff;
for otherwhere was a litter of great rocks and small, hard to be
threaded even by those who knew the passes well; so that men had to
tread along the very verge of the Shivering Flood, and wary must they
be, for the water ran swift and deep betwixt banks of sheer rock half
a fathom below their very foot-soles, which had but bare space to go
on the narrow a way. So it held on for a while, and then got safer,
and there was more space for going betwixt cliff and flood; albeit it
was toilsome enough, since for some way yet there was a drift of
stones to cumber their feet, some big and some little, and some very
big. After a while the way grew better, though here and there, where
the cliffs lowered, were wide screes of loose stones that they must
needs climb up and down.
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