‘Master, dear master,’ he said, but Frodo did not speak. As he had run forward, eager, rejoicing to be free, Shelob with hideous speed had come behind and with one swift stroke had stung him in his neck. He lay now pale, and heard no voice, and did not move.

‘Master, dear master!’ said Sam, through a long silence waited, listening in vain.

Then as quickly as he could he cut away the binding cords and laid his head upon Frodo’s breast and to his mouth, but no stir of life could he find, nor feel the faintest flutter of the heart. Often he chafed his masters hand and feet, and touched his brow, all were cold.

‘Frodo, Mr Frodo!’ he called. ‘Don’t leave me hear alone! It’s your Sam calling. Don’t go where I can’t follow! Wake up, Mr Frodo! O wake up Frodo, me dear, me dear. Wake up!’

Then anger took over him, and he ran about his master’s body in a rage, stabbing the air, and smiting the stones, and shouting challenges. Presently he came back, and bending looked at Frodo’s face, pale beneath him in the dusk. And sudenly he saw that he was in the picture that was revealed to him in the mirror of Galadriel of Lorien: Frodo with a pale face lying fast asleep under the great dark cliff. Or fast asleep he had thought then. ‘He’s dead!’ he said ‘Not asleep, dead!.’ And as he said it, as if the word had set the venom to its work again, it seemed to him that the hue of the face grew livid green.

And then despair came down on him, and Sam bowed to the ground, and drew his grey hood over his head, and night came into his heart, and he knew no more.

When at last the blackness passed, Sam looked up and shadows were about him; but for many minutes or hours the world had gone dragging on he could not tell. He was still in the same place, and still his master lay beside him dead. The mountains had not crumbled nor the earth fallen into rain.

‘What shall I do, what shall I do?’ he said ‘Did I come all this way with him for nothing?’ And then he remembered his own voice speaking words that at time he did not understand himself, at the beginning of their journey: I have something to do before the end. I must see it through, sir, if you understand.

‘But what can I do? Not leave Mr Frodo dead, unburied on the top of the mountains, and go home? Or go on? Go on? He repeated, and for a moment doubt and fear shook him. ‘Go on? Is that what I’ve got to do? And leave him?’

Then at last he began to weep; and going to Frodo he composed his body, and folded his cold hands into his breast, and wrapped his cloak about him; and he laid his own sword at one side, and the stuff that Faramir had given on the other.

‘If I’m to go on,’ he said, ‘then I must take your sword, by your leave, Mr. Frodo, but I’ll put this one to lie by you, as it laid by the old king in that barrow; and you’ve got your beautiful mithril coat from old Mr. Bilbo. And your star glass, Mr. Frodo, you did leand it to me and I’ll need it, for I’ll be always in the dark now. It’s too good for me, and the Lady gave it to you, but maybe she’d understand. Do you understand Mr. Frodo? I’ve got to go on.’

But he could not go, not yet. He knelt and held Frodo’s hand and could not release it. And time went buy and still ne knelt, but holding his master’s hand, and in his heart keeping a debate.

Now he tried to strength to tear himself away and go on a lonely journey- for vengeance. If once he could go, his anger would bear him down all the road of the world, pursuing, until he had him at last: Gollum. Then Gollum would die in the corner. But that was not what he sat out to do. It would not be worth while to leave his master to do that. It would not bring him back. Nothing would. They had better both be dead together. And that too would be a lonely journey.

He looked on the bright point of the sword. He thought of the places behind where there was a black brink and an empty fall into nothingness. There was no escape that way. Hat was to do nothing, not even to grieve. That was not what he sat out to do. ‘What am I to do then?’ he cried again, and now he seemed plainly to know the hard answer: see it through. Another lonely journey, and the worst.

‘What? Me, alone, to go to the Crack of Doom and all?’ He quailed still, but the resolve grew. ‘What? Me take the Ring from him? The Council gave it to him’.

But the answer came at once: ‘ And the Council gave him companions, so that he errand should not fail. And you are the last of all the Company. The errand must not fail.’

‘I wish I wasn’t the last,’ he groaned. ‘ I wish old Gandalf was here, or somebody. Why am I left all alone to make up my mind? I’m sure to go wrong. And it’s not for me to go taking the Ring, putting myself forward.’

‘But you haven’t put yourself forward; you’ve been put forward. And as for not being the right and proper person, why Mr. Frodo, wasn’t, as you might say, nor Mr. Bilbo. They didn’t choose themselves.’

‘Ah well, I must make up my mind my own mind. I will make it up. But I’ll be sure to go wrong: that’d be Sam Gamgee all over.’

‘Let me see now: if we’re found here, or Mr. Frodo’s found, and that Thing’s on him, well the enemy will get it. And that’s the end of all of us, of Lorien, and Rivendell, and the Shire and all. And the’s no time to loose, or it’ll be the end anyway. The war’s begun, and more then likely things are going the Enemy’s way already. No chance to go back with it and get advise or permission. No, it’s sit here till they come and kill me over Master’s body, and gets It; or take it and go.’ he drew a deep breath.

‘Then take It, it is!.’

He stooped. Very gently he undid the clasp at the heck and slipped his hand inside Frodo’s tunic; then with his other hand raising his head, he kissed the cold forehead, and softly drew the chain over it. And then the head lay quetly back again in rest. No change came over the still face, and by that more then by any tokens Sam convinced at last Frodo had died and laid aside the Quest.

‘Good-bye, master, my dear!’ he murmured. ‘Forgive your Sam. He’ll come back to this spot when the job’s done - if he manages it. And then he’ll not leave you again. Rest your quiet till I come; and may no foul creature come anigh you! And if the Lady me and give me one wish, I would wish to come back and find you again. Good-bye!’

And then he bent his own heck and put the chain upon it, and at once his hear was bowed to the ground with the weigh of the Ring, as if a great stone has been strung on him. But slowly, as if the weigh has became less or a new strength grew in him, he raised his head, and then with a great effort got to his feet and found that he could walk and bear his burden. And for a moment he lifted up the Phial and looked down at his master, and the light burned gently now with a soft radiance of the evening-star in summer, and in that light Frodo’s face was fair of hue again, pale but beautiful with an elvish beauty, as of one who long passed the shadows. And with the bitter comfort of that last sight Sam turned and hid the light and stumbled on into the growing dark.