Gollum threw down the rock he was holding, and I was able to relax again.

"Now ask us another one." Gollum demanded, whining like a child.

"No. No, no, no. You said ask me a question. Well, that is my question." Bilbo said, pointing the tip of his sword at Gollum's chest. "What have I got in my pocket?"

Gollum groaned and hopped down from the rock. "Three guesses, precious. It must give us three!"

"Three guesses." Bilbo agreed. "Very well, guess away."

"Handses!" Gollum cried.

"Wrong," Bilbo displayed both his hands. "Guess again."

Gollum cried out in distress, beating the ground and mumbling nonsense I couldn't catch under his breath.

"Knife!" he decided finally. Then said, "Oh, shut up!"

"Wrong again." Bilbo said. "Last guess."

"String! Or nothing." Gollum hissed.

"Two guesses at once. Wrong both times." Bilbo practically sang.

He had won!

Gollum fell over on his side, sobbing into his hands.

"So come, then." Bilbo said as Gollum rose. "I won the game. You promised to show me the way out."

"Did we say so, precious?" Gollum said, his voice full of malice and free of mercy. "Did we say so?"

He turned to Bilbo, his breath rattling in his chest. "What has it got in its pocketses?"

"That's no concern of yours." Bilbo said quietly. "You lost."

"Lost? Lost? Lost?"

Bilbo was backing up, but Gollum kept advancing on him.

Gollum was reaching into his own pockets. His eyes went wide as he dug frantically for something that didn't seem to be there.

"Where is it?" cried Gollum. "Where is it?"

He was screaming now, throwing aside old bones and anything in his way to find what he had lost.

"Where is it?! No! No!"

He ran to the water, splashing around in the shadows.

"Lost! Curse us and splash us!" He screamed. "My precious is lost!"

I saw Bilbo quickly take something from his pocket and hide it behind his back.

"What have you lost?" Bilbo asked nervously.

"Mustn't ask us! Not it's business!" Gollum cried frantically. "NOO!"

"Gollum, gollum!" He coughed.

He was positively heaving, as if he would cry if he could form the tears. But then... he went still.

"What has it got... in it's nasty... little pocketses?" Growled the creature.

The hand behind Bilbo's back tightened and he raised up his sword.

"He stole it." Said Gollum, quietly. "He stole it!"

Gollum screamed, a terrible scream that I thought would haunt my dream for the rest of my life.

"He stole it!" Gollum screeched. Hr hurled a rock atBilbo and rushed towards the hobbit.

Bilbo sprinted in a direction I couldn't follow, so I ran back down the tunnel I came from and took the first passage towards the way Bilbo had gone.

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