Since I'm sure that you, like the hobbit, wish to know about what was happening on Hannah's end, we must for a moment return to the halls of the Elvenking. The night was just giving way to dawn when Hannah (still in a state of twilight consciousness where she was more asleep than awake) became vaguely aware that there were the sounds of a commotion outside her room. The Wood-elves, many of who had yet to fully recover from the excessive indulgence of the previous evening, had sobered up very quickly and begun to hurry about in a panic upon discovering that their prisoners had somehow managed to vanish from their locked cells. The instant this dreadful news was brought to the attention of the king, he issued orders to scour every inch of the caves and the forest in search of the Dwarves, and quickly made his way to confront the only remaining member of their party.

"Get up!" Thranduil commanded sternly as he swept into the room in which Hannah was being kept. But to his irritation the girl simply rolled over and gave a mumbled plea for five more minutes of rest. The king ripped away her blankets. Hannah shivered and instinctively curled up against the cold as much as she could before finally cracking open an eye to see a very livid Elvenking looming over her bed in a rather ominous manner. "Where are they?" he demanded shortly.

"Who?" asked Hannah, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Her brain hadn't quite caught up with her mouth yet.

"The Dwarves! They are gone, all of them."

"And you think I had something to do with it?" she asked. "I think you're giving me too much credit, your highness. I've been here the whole time, just ask my guards and caretakers." Seeing as she had no idea how long the others had been on the run, Hannah thought she should at least try to do them the favor of stalling their pursuit as best she could.

"Do not lie to me. You know something, I can tell," said the king watching her closely. "How did they get out?" he pressed.

"I have never lied to you," said Hannah in all seriousness. She may have stretched the truth a bit at times, but she had stuck to it (without giving away anything too damaging about herself or the Dwarves) as much as possible during her stay in the Elvenking's halls. "But to answer your question, I honestly couldn't say for certain. If they've escaped then they would have had to do so without any help from me. I'm all but useless with my leg like this," she said calmly, giving her bound and braced leg a light tap for emphasis. After all, when Bilbo had come to her with his rough idea to hide the Dwarves in the barrels, it had been little more than that, and full of uncertainty. The full details of how he had managed to pull off such a feat as rescuing all thirteen Dwarves out from under the Elves' noses were known only to the hobbit.

"The Dwarves have left you behind," Thranduil reminded her sternly. "They have abandoned you. There is no need for you to continue to protect them."

"If they left me behind it was because they had no other choice," she stated calmly. "As I've just said, I'll be useless until this splint can be removed, which would make for a rather awkward escape, don't you think, your majesty? I'm quite glad they didn't let whatever affection they might have for me stop them. You see, it's terribly important that they continue their quest, so much so that I think the issue of my personal safety pales in comparison. And I do not think a great Elvenking such as yourself would be so cruel as to harm a defenseless child."

"Hmph! The only thing child-like about you is your appearance—flattery will get you nowhere. Your loyalty is admirable, but if you continue to resist answering my questions, then I shall have you moved to one of the recently vacated cells," Thranduil retorted coolly. Beneath her youthful innocence lay an almost startling practicality and guile that was rarely seen in one so young. But there was also a gentle sort of strength and a deep selflessness about her. Even under the threat of harsher imprisonment, the girl would say nothing to betray her companions. "Why are you so intent upon covering for them? I know the Dwarves seek to reclaim Erebor. Did they promise you a share of the treasure? What makes you so certain that they will keep their end of the bargain?"

"Nothing," answered Hannah. "Because I made no such bargain. This isn't about treasure or anything like that. And while I would like to see my new friends all safely settled in their lost home again, that isn't my only reason for helping them. Please don't take this the wrong way, your majesty, but I've been told by my mentor, the one who started all of this, to keep the full details of the errand as secret as possible. And I'm not at all sure how much I should tell you, though I would like to give you the answers you seek after the kindness you and your son have shown me. However I can say this: much depends upon the Dwarves succeeding in their quest. Please let them. That Dragon cannot be left alone. This quest and its repercussions are related to far more heavy and important matters than I think you realize, including the safety of your realm. The Necromancer is not what he seems," she finished gravely. Hannah felt she should at least share that piece of information with him, however vague, given how the Necromancer's territory was not too far from his own.

"Is that all you have to say?" the king asked after pausing for a moment to consider several possible meanings behind her ambiguous warning. The underlying message of her words implied much without giving any concrete evidence to support her claims. And she had given to him none of the answers which he sought most.

"I feel that is all I can say," answered Hannah. She might be able to tell him more once the Dwarves had completed their quest, or the Council finished whatever attack Gandalf might be leading on Dol Guldur, but for now there was still too great a need for secrecy so as not to alert the Enemy for her to be careless with her words.

"I see," Thranduil said grimly as he regarded the young girl before him with a jaded expression upon his fair face. "Take her away," he ordered the guards in Elvish. Hannah offered no resistance as she was carefully led away to her new prison.

Now let us return to Bilbo and the Dwarves. The day grew lighter and warmer as they floated along. After a while the river rounded a steep shoulder of land that came upon their left. Under its rocky feet like an inland cliff the deepest stream had flowed lapping and bubbling. Suddenly the cliff fell away. The shores sank. The trees ended. Then Bilbo saw a sight:

The lands opened wide about him, filled with the waters of the river which broke up and wandered in a hundred winding courses, or halted in marshes and pools dotted with isles on every side; but still a strong water flowed on steadily through the midst. And far away, its dark head in a torn cloud, there loomed the Mountain! Its nearest neighbors to the North-East and the tumbled land that joined to it could not be seen. All alone it rose and looked across the marshes to the forest. The Lonely Mountain! Bilbo had come far and through many adventures to see it, and now he did not like the look of it in the least.

As he listened to the talk of the raftmen and pieced together the scraps of information they let fall, he soon realized that he was very fortunate to have ever seen it at all, even from a distance. Dreary as had been his imprisonment and unpleasant as was his position (to say nothing of the poor Dwarves who were underneath him) still, he had been more lucky than he had guessed. The talk was all of the trade that came and went along the waterways and the growth of the traffic on the river, as the roads out of the East towards Mirkwood vanished or fell into disuse; and of the bickerings of the Lake-men and the Wood-elves about the upkeep of the Forest River and care of the banks. Those lands had changed much since the days when Dwarves dwelt in the Mountain, days which most people now remembered only as a very shadowy tradition. They had changed even in the recent years, and since the last time that Gandalf had been through them. Great floods and rains had swollen the waters that flowed east; and there had been an earthquake or two (which some were inclined to attribute to the Dragon—alluding to him chiefly with a curse and an ominous nod in the direction of the Mountain). The marshes and bogs had spread wider and wider on either side. Paths had vanished, and many a rider and wanderer too, if they had tried to find the lost ways across. The elf-road through the woods which the Dwarves had followed on the advice of Beorn now came to a doubtful and little used end at the eastern edge of the forest; only the river offered any longer a safe way from the skirts of Mirkwood in the North to the mountain-shadowed plains beyond, and the river was guarded by the Wood-elves' king.

So you see Bilbo had come in the end by the only road that was any good. It might have been of some comfort to Mr. Baggins shivering on the barrels, if he had known that news of this had reached Gandalf far away and given him great anxiety, and that he was in fact finishing his other business (which will perhaps be explained at a later on in this tale) and getting ready to come in search of Thorin's company. But Bilbo did not know it.

All he knew was that the river seemed to go on and on forever, and he was worried about Hannah, he was hungry, and had a nasty cold in the nose, and did not like the way the Mountain seemed to frown at him and threaten him as it drew ever nearer. After a while, however, the river took a more southerly course and the Mountain receded again, and at last, late in the day the shores grew rocky, the river gathered all its wandering waters together into a deep and rapid flood, and they swept along at great speed.

The sun had set when turning with another sweep towards the East the forest-river rushed into the Long Lake. There it had a wide mouth with stony cliff-like gates at either side whose feet were piled with shingles. The Long Lake! Bilbo had never imagined that any water that was not the sea could look so big. It was so wide that the opposite shores looked small and far, but it was so long that its northerly end, which pointed towards the Mountain, could not be seen at all. Only from the map did Bilbo know that away up there, where the stars of the Wain were already twinkling, the Running River came down into the lake from Dale and with the Forest River filled with deep waters what must once have been a great deep rocky valley. At the southern end the doubled waters poured out again over high waterfalls and ran away hurriedly to unknown lands. In the still evening air the noise of the falls could be heard like a distant roar.

Not far from the mouth of the Forest River was the strange town he heard the Elves speak of in the king's cellars. It was not built on the shore, though there were a few huts and buildings there, but right out on the surface of the lake, protected from the swirl of the entering river by a promontory of rock which formed a calm bay. A great bridge made of wood ran out to where on huge piles made of forest trees was built a busy wooden town, not a town of Elves but of Men, who still dared to dwell here under the shadow of the distant dragon-mountain. They still throve on the trade that came up the great river from the South and was carted past the falls to their town; but in the great days of old, when Dale in the North was rich and prosperous, they had been wealthy and powerful, and there had been fleets of boats on the waters, and some were filled with gold and some with warriors in armor, and there had been wars and deeds which were now only a legend. The rotting piles of a greater town could still be seen along the shores when the waters sank in a drought.

But men remembered little of all that, though some still sang old songs of the dwarf-kings of the Mountain, Thrór and Thráin and race of Durin, and of the coming of the Dragon, and the fall of the lords of Dale. Some sang too that Thrór and Thráin would come back one day and gold would flow in rivers through the mountain-gates, and all that land would be filled with new song and new laughter. But this pleasant legend did not much affect their daily business

Back in the halls of the Elvenking, in her small and dim cell, Hannah had begun to sing a few songs of her own; and one of them, a popular song that she used to enjoy listening to Vera Lynn sing over the wireless, went something like this:

When two lovers meet in Mayfair, so the legends tell

Songbirds sing. Winter turns to spring

Every winding street in Mayfair falls beneath the spell

I know such enchantment can be

Cause it happened one evening to me.

That certain night, the night we met

There was magic abroad in the air.

There were angels dining at the Ritz

And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square

I may be right I maybe wrong

But I'm perfectly willing to swear

That when you turned and smiled at me

A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square

The moon that lingered over London town

Poor puzzled moon, he wore a frown

How could he know that we two were so in love

The whole damned world seemed up-side-down

The streets of town were paved with stars

It was such a romantic affair

And as we kissed and said good-night

A nightingale sang in Berkley Square

Hannah whistled out the tune of the jazz solo.

Our homeward step was just as light as the tap-dancing feet of Astaire

And like an echo far away

A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square

I know cause I was there that night in Berkeley Square.

"It almost sounds as though we have a nightingale singing in here," commented Legolas, alerting her to his presence. Hannah turned her head to looked up at him. His smile was strained, and she knew that he was none too pleased with her at the moment. Upon his return from searching for the escaped Dwarves (which had proved fruitless due to a complete absence of any semblance of a trail to follow) his father had wasted no time in telling him of the seeming betrayal Hannah had paid them for their trust. "Why do you keep silent on the Dwarves' behalf?" he asked. "If you but answer the king's questions, he will release you from this prison."

"I take no joy in this," said Hannah with a wan smile; "but though I would very much like to remain in your good graces, I cannot betray an old friendship for the sake of a new one. And there is much more at stake than my freedom. I'd hate to think of what tragedy might befall this land should I prove careless with my words."

"If the situation is truly as dire as you claim, then why do you sit here singing instead of trying to find your own means of escape?"

"Who says I'm not?" she teased with a small twinkle in her eyes. "But in all seriousness, we both know I won't get very far with my leg bound like this, and I have no desire to further anger your father. He makes me nervous enough as it is! So for the time being, I think I shall continue to focus on doing what I can from here, which is to rest and finishing healing. And in the meantime I will sing, or I may very well start clawing and climbing the walls from boredom."

"Then by all means sing!" said Legolas. He should have been angry with her for whatever part she may have played in the escape of their prisoners, but for some reason he could not bring himself to hold a grudge against the odd but brave little mortal girl; and the prince found that he enjoyed listening to her voice, which rang like a crystal bell throughout the cavern as she began to sing anew.

As soon as the raft of barrels came in sight boats rowed out from the piles of the town, and voices hailed the raftsteerers. Then ropes were cast and oars were pulled, and soon the raft was drawn out of the current of the Forest River and towed away round the high shoulder of the rock into the little bay of Lake-town. There it was moored not far from the shoreward head of the great bridge. Soon men would come up from the South and take some of the casks away, and others they would fill with goods they had brought to be taken back up the stream to the Wood-elves' home. In the meanwhile the barrels were left afloat while the Elves of the raft and the boatmen went to feast in Lake-town.

They would have been surprised, if they could have seen what happened down by the shore, after they had gone and the shades of night had fallen. First of all a barrel was cut loose by Bilbo and pushed to the shore and opened. Groans came from inside, and out crept a most unhappy Dwarf. Wet straw was in his draggled beard; he was so sore and stiff, so bruised and buffeted he could hardly stand or stumble through the shallow water to lie groaning on the shore. He had a famished and a savage look like a dog that had been chained and forgotten in a kennel for a week. It was Thorin, though you could only have told it by his golden chain and the key hanging from it. It was some time before he would even be polite to the hobbit.

"Well, are you alive or are you dead?" asked Bilbo quite crossly. Perhaps he had forgotten that he had had at least one good meal more than the Dwarves, and also the use of his arms and legs, not to speak of a greater allowance of air. "Are you still in prison, or are you free? If you want food, and if you want to go on with this silly adventure—it's yours after all and not mine—you had better slap your arms and rub your legs and try and help me get the others out while there is a chance!"

Thorin of course saw the sense of this, so after a few more groans he got up and helped the hobbit as well as he could. In the darkness floundering in the cold water they had a difficult and very nasty job finding which were the right barrels. Knocking outside and calling only discovered about six Dwarves that could answer. They were unpacked and helped ashore where they sat or lay muttering and moaning; they were so soaked and bruised and cramped that they could hardly yet realize their release and be thankful for it.

Dwalin and Balin were two of the most unhappy, and it was no good asking them to help. Bifur and Bofur were less knocked out and drier, but they lay down and would do nothing. Fili and Kili, however, who were young (for Dwarves) and had also been packed more neatly with plenty of straw into smaller casks, came out more or less smiling, with only a bruise or two and a stiffness that soon wore off.

"I hope I never smell the smell of apples again!" said Fili. "My tub was full of it. to smell apples everlastingly when you can scarcely move and are cold and sick with hunger is maddening. I could eat anything in the wide world now, for hours on end—but not an apple!"

With the willing help of Fili and Kili, Thorin and Bilbo at last discovered the remainder of the company and got them out. Poor fat Bombur was asleep or senseless; Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, and Glóin were waterlogged and seemed only half alive; they all had to be carried one by one and laid helpless on the shore.