Sam looked from bank to bank uneasily. The trees had seemed hostile before, as if they harboured secret eyes and lurking dangers; now he wished that the trees were still there. He felt that the Company was too naked, afloat in little open boats in the midst of shelterless lands, and on a river that was the frontier of war.
In the next day or two, as they went on, borne steadily southwards, this feeling of insecurity grew on all the Company. For a whole day they took to their paddles and hastened forward. The banks slid by. Soon the River broadened and grew more shallow; long stony beaches lay upon the east, and there were gravel-shoals in the water, so that careful steering was needed. The Brown Lands rose into bleak wolds, over which flowed a chill air from the East. On the other side the meads had become rolling downs of withered grass amidst a land of fen and tussock. Frodo shivered, thinking of the lawns and fountains, the clear sun and gentle rains of Lothlórien. There was little speech and no laughter in any of the boats. Each member of the Company was busy with his own thoughts.
The heart of Legolas was running under the stars of a summer night in some northern glade amid the beech-woods; Gimli was fingering gold in his mind, and wondering if it were fit to be wrought into the housing of the Lady’s gift. Merry and Pippin in the middle boat were ill at ease, for Boromir sat muttering to himself, sometimes biting his nails, as if some restlessness or doubt consumed him, sometimes seizing a paddle and driving the boat close behind Aragorn’s. Then Pippin, who sat in the bow looking back, caught a queer gleam in his eye, as he peered forward gazing at Frodo. Sam had long ago made up his mind that, though boats were maybe not as dangerous as he had been brought up to believe, they were far more uncomfortable than even he had imagined. He was cramped and miserable, having nothing to do but stare at the winter-lands crawling by and the grey water on either side of him. Even when the paddles were in use they did not trust Sam with one.
As dusk drew down on the fourth day, he was looking back over the bowed heads of Frodo and Aragorn and the following boats; he was drowsy and longed for camp and the feel of earth under his toes. Suddenly something caught his sight: at first he stared at it listlessly, then he sat up and rubbed his eyes; but when he looked again he could not see it any more.
That night they camped on a small eyot close to the western bank. Sam lay rolled in blankets beside Frodo. ‘I had a funny dream an hour or two before we stopped, Mr. Frodo,’ he said. ‘Or maybe it wasn’t a dream. Funny it was anyway.’
‘Well, what was it?’ said Frodo, knowing that Sam would not settle down until he had told his tale, whatever it was. ‘I haven’t seen or thought of anything to make me smile since we left Lothlórien.’
‘It wasn’t funny that way, Mr. Frodo. It was queer. All wrong, if it wasn’t a dream. And you had best hear it. It was like this: I saw a log with eyes!’
‘The log’s all right,’ said Frodo. ‘There are many in the River. But leave out the eyes!’
‘That I won’t,’ said Sam. ‘’Twas the eyes as made me sit up, so to speak. I saw what I took to be a log floating along in the half-light behind Gimli’s boat; but I didn’t give much heed to it. Then it seemed as if the log was slowly catching us up. And that was peculiar, as you might say, seeing as we were all floating on the stream together. Just then I saw the eyes: two pale sort of points, shiny-like, on a hump at the near end of the log. What’s more, it wasn’t a log, for it had paddle-feet, like a swan’s almost, only they seemed bigger, and kept dipping in and out of the water.
‘That’s when I sat right up and rubbed my eyes, meaning to give a shout, if it was still there when I had rubbed the drowse out of my head. For the whatever-it-was was coming along fast now and getting close behind Gimli. But whether those two lamps spotted me moving and staring, or whether I came to my senses, I don’t know. When I looked again, it wasn’t there. Yet I think I caught a glimpse, with the tail of my eye, as the saying is, of something dark shooting under the shadow of the bank. I couldn’t see no more eyes, though.
‘I said to myself: “dreaming again, Sam Gamgee,” I said; and I said no more just then. But I’ve been thinking since, and now I’m not so sure. What do you make of it, Mr. Frodo?’
‘I should make nothing of it but a log and the dusk and sleep in your eyes, Sam,’ said Frodo, ‘if this was the first time that those eyes had been seen. But it isn’t. I saw them away back north before we reached Lórien. And I saw a strange creature with eyes climbing to the flet that night. Haldir saw it too. And do you remember the report of the Elves that went after the orc-band?’
‘Ah,’ said Sam, ‘I do; and I remember more too. I don’t like my thoughts; but thinking of one thing and another, and Mr. Bilbo’s stories and all, I fancy I could put a name on the creature, at a guess. A nasty name. Gollum, maybe?’
‘Yes, that is what I have feared for some time,’ said Frodo. ‘Ever since the night on the flet. I suppose he was lurking in Moria, and picked up our trail then; but I hoped that our stay in Lórien would throw him off the scent again. The miserable creature must have been hiding in the woods by the Silverlode, watching us start off!’
‘That’s about it,’ said Sam. ‘And we’d better be a bit more watchful ourselves, or we’ll feel some nasty fingers round our necks one of these nights, if we ever wake up to feel anything. And that’s what I was leading up to. No need to trouble Strider or the others tonight. I’ll keep watch. I can sleep tomorrow, being no more than luggage in a boat, as you might say.’
‘I might,’ said Frodo, ‘and I might say “luggage with eyes”. You shall watch; but only if you promise to wake me half-way towards morning, if nothing happens before then.’
In the dead hours Frodo came out of a deep dark sleep to find Sam shaking him. ‘It’s a shame to wake you,’ whispered Sam, ‘but that’s what you said. There’s nothing to tell, or not much. I thought I heard some soft plashing and a sniffing noise, a while back; but you hear a lot of such queer sounds by a river at night.’
He lay down, and Frodo sat up, huddled in his blankets, and fought off his sleep. Minutes or hours passed slowly, and nothing happened. Frodo was just yielding to the temptation to lie down again when a dark shape, hardly visible, floated close to one of the moored boats. A long whitish hand could be dimly seen as it shot out and grabbed the gunwale; two pale lamplike eyes shone coldly as they peered inside, and then they lifted and gazed up at Frodo on the eyot. They were not more than a yard or two away, and Frodo heard the soft hiss of intaken breath. He stood up, drawing Sting from its sheath, and faced the eyes. Immediately their light was shut off. There was another hiss and a splash, and the dark log-shape shot away downstream into the night. Aragorn stirred in his sleep, turned over, and sat up.