hold still the near half of Osgiliath. For a little while. But we
await now a new onslaught there. Maybe the chief onslaught of the war
that comes.’
     ‘When?’ said Pippin. ‘Have you a guess? For I saw the beacons last
night and the errand-riders; and Gandalf said that it was a sign that
war had begun. He seemed in a desperate hurry. But now everything
seems to have slowed up again.’
     ‘Only because everything is now ready,’ said Beregond. ‘It is but the
deep breath before the plunge.’
     ‘But why were the beacons lit last night?’
     ‘It is over-late to send for aid when you are already besieged,’
answered Beregond. ‘But I do not know the counsel of the Lord and his
captains. They have many ways of gathering news. And the Lord Denethor
is unlike other men: he sees far. Some say that as he sits alone in
his high chamber in the Tower at night, and bends his thought this way
and that, he can read somewhat of the future; and that he will at
times search even the mind of the Enemy, wrestling with him. And so it
is that he is old, worn before his time. But however that may be, my
lord Faramir is abroad, beyond the River on some perilous errand, and
he may have sent tidings.