The small boat drifted on.
It was a very small boat, with barely enough room for its one passenger to sit comfortably, and it swayed and bobbed among the waves.
It passed lamp-lit quays, and those who stood there started and exclaimed at the sight of it, for rarely indeed did mortal boats find the straight way and so come in time to the haven at Alqualondë. Never before it had happened within their knowledge, and the watchers wondered what great doom was upon this man.
But the man in the boat did not look up, or perhaps he could not look up.
Water trickled down his face, and dripped slowly onto the boat's base.
And the little boat still bobbed on, and the man did not move, and the watchers wondered whether the only doom that was upon him was the doom of dying.
It seemed so.
But then he moved, and with what seemed to be a tremendous effort, raised his head and looked west. And there with failing sight, he saw the White Mountain, lofty Taniquetil, beautiful and terrible.
And then he fell back, and breathed no more, and lay in his boat in the last great stillness.
THE END