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the scouring of the shire 1335
little fellow, your nice little Boss. Didn’t you, Worm? Stabbed
him in his sleep, I believe. Buried him, I hope; though Worm
has been very hungry lately. No, Worm is not really nice.
You had better leave him to me.’
A look of wild hatred came into Wormtongue’s red eyes.
‘You told me to; you made me do it,’ he hissed.
Saruman laughed. ‘You do what Sharkey says, always,
don’t you, Worm? Well, now he says: follow!’ He kicked
Wormtongue in the face as he grovelled, and turned and
made off. But at that something snapped: suddenly Wormtongue
rose up, drawing a hidden knife, and then with a snarl
like a dog he sprang on Saruman’s back, jerked his head back,
cut his throat, and with a yell ran off down the lane. Before
Frodo could recover or speak a word, three hobbit-bows
twanged and Wormtongue fell dead.
To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of
Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great
height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it
loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to
the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent
away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.
Frodo looked down at the body with pity and horror, for
as he looked it seemed that long years of death were suddenly
revealed in it, and it shrank, and the shrivelled face became
rags of skin upon a hideous skull. Lifting up the skirt of the
dirty cloak that sprawled beside it, he covered it over, and
turned away.
‘And that’s the end of that,’ said Sam. ‘A nasty end, and I
wish I needn’t have seen it; but it’s a good riddance.’
‘And the very last end of the War, I hope,’ said Merry.
‘I hope so,’ said Frodo and sighed. ‘The very last stroke. But
to think that it should fall here, at the very door of Bag End!
Among all my hopes and fears at least I never expected that.’
‘I shan’t call it the end, till we’ve cleared up the mess,’ said
Sam gloomily. ‘And that’ll take a lot of time and work.’