Bilbo crept down the passage, staying close to the walls and moving as quietly as possible. Hobbits can move stealthily when the need arises, and Bilbo's footfalls were completely silent, even in the dark echoing passages that riddled the interior of the mountain and seemed to amplify every sound. The same could not be said for the dwarves, however; even when he had descended far into the bowels of the mountain, Bilbo still heard the faint echoes of dwarvish laughter drifting down the curving passageway
In actuality, Bilbo had to admit he was a bit worried of facing the dragon. In fact, he was beginning to wonder why for Manwe's sake he had ever left his snug little hobbit hole, far away across the misty mountains. His waistcoat was tattered, he had gone ages without a decent six meals a day, and to cap it all off he was now heading out to rob a dragon who, apparently, had brought an entire dwarvish civilization to its knees. Bilbo, at this juncture, was not a happy hobbit.
As he descended, the passages became diffused with a faint reddish light. It wasn't the sort of warm and comfortable light that danced on Bilbo's walls when he settled down at the end of the day with a good book and a tallow candle. No, this light was vaguely menacing. It spoke of volcanoes and fires deep underground, and Bilbo began to feel really afraid. At first, his irritation at the dwarves had squashed any tremors of panic- after all they had been through together, it was rather unsportsmanlike of the them to sit high and dry in their cave while they sent him to face a terrifying monster. However, as the light grew more intense, Bilbo began to imagine its source- dragon fire, presumably. He wondered- dispassionately at first, and then not so dispassionately- what it would be like to be burned by a fire breathing dragon. Would he die immediately, burned to a crisp, or would he linger for hours in incredible pain? And, just as he was attempting to squash this happy thought, he heard a soft snoring noise coming from the end of the passageway.
It sounded like a cross between a growling dog and a warm pot bubbling on the stove and it was, undoubtedly, the most terrifying thing Bilbo had ever heard. The hobbit stopped in his tracks, frozen in terror. At this point, he almost turned around and went back up to the dwarves. Every other time he had done something bFrave on this utterly insane journey, he had been desperate- when that awful slimy creature had cornered him in the dark, or when the dwarves were spinning above his head, wrapped in spider silk and rendered unconscious by the awful venom. There had been no time for doubts, because Bilbo had needed all his wits to escape from the dangerous situations. This time, though, Bilbo could have turned around. He could have gone back to the dwarves and said that he refused to steal the dragon's gold, that it was an impossible task for a Shire hobbit, and then returned home to his nice little hobbit-hole with almost no consequences. But Bilbo, out of some vestigial Took stubbornness, refused to turn around. Breathing deeply, he tapped into an inner reserve of strength he hadn't known was there and continued stolidly down the passage.
At the end of the passageway, a small circle of light could be seen. Bilbo suspected that the dragon's lair was close, and was very glad that he had his ring on his finger. Even if the dragon somehow woke up, Bilbo would be invisible and should be able to slip away unobserved. This was rather cold comfort to poor Bilbo though, as he knew that dragon fire could harm him whether or not he was visible. He steeled himself and walked forward down the passageway.
The opening was five feet high, the same size as the rest of the passage, and the floor of the corridor was flush with the floor of the great cavern on the other side. Bilbo looked out of the opening and froze in wonder and amazement.
Before him, and sloping far above his head into blackness, lay an underground cavern. Although the dim light failed to penetrate far into the blackness, the vault somehow gave the impression of immensity, and Bilbo would not have been surprised if you told him that the space went on forever. A smooth sloping wall spread away from the opening of the cavern, fading into murkiness after about a hundred meters in either direction.
However, the thing that amazed Bilbo most was the dragon. Smaug lay curled up on a massive mound of treasure piled against the cavern wall. He was an enormous beast, with vicious spikes all down his back and tail. His reddish-gold scales seemed to exude their own light. The noise of his snores reverberated around the cavern, and two small plumes of smoke snaked up from his snout with each breath. Bilbo had seen pictures, of course, but nothing had prepared him for the vicious beauty of the dragon. Smaug stirred a bit in his sleep, and Bilbo caught a glimpse of him stomach from around his scales- the exposed flesh was covered with diamonds that shone in the light.
Then, of course, there was the treasure. Bilbo had never been a particularly greedy hobbit, and had signed on to the expedition more out of a wish to see the world (and get Gandalf to leave him alone) than out of any real desire for gold. He had never really understood the longing looks that appeared on the dwarves' faces whenever they spoke of their lost treasure, nor the way their hands seemed to clench reflexively at any mention of gold. He understood now. The mounds of burnished gold were so beautiful that Bilbo stared at them for a full minute before remembering where he was. The hobbit was filled with a desire he could not understand, an irrational desire for gold. He could almost understand how Smaug could have killed so many- this was a treasure worth fighting for, worth dying for.
There were goblets and diadems, suits of metal, and molded flowers, and also round nuggets of unworked gold lying on the floor. On the wall were hung gorgeous weapons- no less functional for their beauty, the sharp edges still shone after so many years of abandonment. There were also gemstones- emeralds the color of the deep woods, ruby necklaces, diamonds set into cups.
With difficulty, he wrenched his gaze away from the gold and looked at the floor to find a safe path over to where the dragon lay. Only then did he notice that some of the gold pieces lay in rather odd configurations. They seemed like deliberate shapes, but could form no pattern that he was aware of. There were maces and swords laid out on the floor connecting large nuggets of gold to form odd diagrams, which were labeled with letters scratched into the floor- H's and C's. On the other side of the wall, there was a small pile of worked gold pieces which seemed twisted and misshapen, as if they had been hurled at the walls at high speed.
One area of treasure was spotlessly organized, in stark contrast to the disheveled pile of treasure underneath the dragon. Jeweled vials and golden cups were arranged in neat rows, along with a few swords dripping strange liquids which hung from sticks attached to the wall. Bilbo crept up to the cups, curious to see what was inside. He had never been in a dragon's lair before, and, now that he thought about it, he was curious about what dragons did with their time.
He reached the area of the ordered gold, still walking soundlessly, and began to examine the contents of the cups. The goblet closest to him was empty except for a small pile of dirt. However, as he continued to walk along the row, he noticed that many of the containers contained human and animal remains in various stages of decomposition. One golden bowl contained a bloody sheep's head covered in maggots working busily away- the adjacent one had a nearly identical sheep's head doused in a strange greenish liquid. A human thumb lay inside a diamond chalice. Bilbo shuddered and began to feel very sick. He knew, of course, that dragons ate people, but he had never thought that a dragon would keep around the bodies of its meals for so long. Did seeing them slowly decompose give it a kind of perverse pleasure? Suddenly, the gold no longer seemed so enticing. Bilbo would have been very glad to get back home to Hobbiton, where people liked tea and crumpets and afternoon naps and didn't leave ovine heads lying around in perfectly serviceable golden goblets. Before, he had been excited about liberating the dragon of some portion of its treasure- now, he just wanted to get out of the cavern as fast as possible. He ran lightly back down the row of rotting flesh and, remembering his errand at the last moment, grabbed the goblet filled with dirt from the end of the row. Bilbo dumped the dirt onto the cavern floor and sprinted back to the tunnel entrance. As he neared the door, he turned to looks around, and he saw the dragon turning restlessly, and heard his rumbling snores grow weaker. Bilbo shuddered and fled off down the tunnel, trying not to imagine what his own head would look like lying in a goblet.
