He had ridden now for four days on end, and the ever-deepening gloom had slowly weighed down his heart. The host was bivouacked in the pine-woods that clustered about Eilenach Beacon, a tall hill standing up from the long ridges of the Druadan Forest that lay beside the great road in East Anorien. He could smell the horses in the dark, and could hear their shiftings and their soft stamping on the needle-covered ground. He could not see them, but he knew that all round him were the companies of the Rohirrim. He wondered if the watchmen had heard it. The throb would cease suddenly and then be taken up again at some other point, now nearer, now further off. Then he heard it again: a sound like faint drums in the wooded hills and mountain-steps.
It was dark and Merry could see nothing as he lay on the ground rolled in a blanket yet though the night was airless and windless, all about him hidden trees were sighing softly.
