For a while the hobbits sat in silence. At length Sam stirred. ‘Well I call that neat as neat,’ he said. ‘If this nice friendliness would spread about in Mordor, half our trouble would be over.’
‘Quietly, Sam,’ Frodo whispered. ‘There may be others about. We have evidently had a very narrow escape, and the hunt was hotter on our tracks than we guessed. But that is the spirit of Mordor, Sam; and it has spread to every corner of it. Orcs have always behaved like that, or so all tales say, when they are on their own. But you can’t get much hope out of it. They hate us far more, altogether and all the time. If those two had seen us, they would have dropped all their quarrel until we were dead.’
