Chapter 16: Frodo Dismisses Samwell at the Shore and Sam Follows Anyway

The current pulled with an evenness I had learned, over six days, to trust in the way one trusts a thing that does not care about you — absolutely, and without comfort. The eastern bank was not far. I had calculated the crossing, insofar as calculation was available to me, which was to say that I had observed the current's behavior for three days and estimated the drift and adjusted the boat's angle by perhaps ten degrees upstream of where I wished to arrive, and this exercise in applied geometry had been, in the moment of its execution, among the most straightforwardly sane acts I had performed since leaving Bag End.

I did not look behind me.

This was not an oversight.