as when death smites the swollen brooding thing that inhabits their crawling hill and holds them all in sway , ants will wander witless and purposeless and then feebly die , so the creatures of sauron , orc or troll or beast spell-enslaved , ran hither and thither mindless ; and some slew themselves , or cast themselves in pits , or fled wailing back to hide in holes and dark lightless places far from hope .