Did you have a pleasant sleep?  I'm afraid all we've got for breakfast is some hobbit - I mean rabbit - stew, but I'm sure we'll find some bigger game or meet a couple of peasants by dinner time.  Anguish asked if he could borrow your handkerchief again, and, since you were still asleep, I said yes; I was sure you wouldn't mind.  But you should take more care of it; you must have dropped it a hundred times yesterday.
    The sky was overcast and the mood was sombre as the caravan set off, but both brightened noticeably after we stopped for lunch.  The wine, as we feared, was plonk, so we decided to stick with Pelargonius' original stock, which was excellent quality and we still had plenty in our flasks.
    Everybody was singing as we left the path and headed uphill.  Pelargonius ordered another barrel of wine broached,
but we kept to our resolution - mostly.  Pelargonius did try to tell us that the trail wine improved the more you had of it, so we took a couple of swigs to keep him happy.
    The hill became steeper and one of the mules baulked, so there was some good-natured cursing as everybody took part of its load - obviously we  mustn't leave anything behind and it was a good excuse to lighten the load by another barrelful.
    The cave mouth opened welcomingly ahead and the caravan danced in.  As the gate dropped behind us, Anguish stopped short, and while the rest of the caravan hastened into the darkness, asked the 64GP question:  What the Hell are we doing?