I could
not help it.

Once, towards morning, there came a booming in my ears, and a
faintness, for I was all but done. But the boat dashed into a wave,
and the cold spray flew over me and roused me to know the danger,
so I took my last crust and ate it, and was refreshed a little.

But when the morning broke cold and gray over brown waves, there,
against one golden line of sunlight, rose the black steady barrier
of a low-lying coast, and round the boat the gulls were screaming
their welcome.

Then came over me a dull fear that I should be lost in sight of
land, and a great sorrow and longing for the English shore in place
of this, for never had I seen sunrise over land before from the
open sea, and hunger and thirst gnawed at me, and I longed for rest
from this tossing of sea, and wave--and always waves. Then I looked
in Beorn's evil face, and I thought that he was dead, but that to
me seemed to matter not.

Swiftly rose up the coast from out the sea, and I saw that it was
like our East Anglian shore, forest covered and dark, but with pine
and birch instead of oak and alder. The boat was heading straight
through a channel; past sands over which I could see the white line
of the tide on either side, and that chance seemed not strange to
me, but as part of all that was to be and must be.

Then the last rollers were safely past, and the boat's keel grated
on sand--and I forgot my weakness, and sprang out into the shallow
water, dragging her up with the next wave and out of reach of the
surges.

Then I saw that the tide was falling, and that I had naught more to
do, for we were safe. With that I gave way at last, and reeled and
fell on the sand, for my strength could bear no more, and I deemed
that I should surely die.

I think that I fell into a great sleep for a while, for I came to
myself presently, refreshed, and rose up.

The tide had ebbed a long way, and the sun was high above me, so
that I must have been an hour or two there upon the sand. I went
and looked at Beorn.

His swoon seemed to have passed into sleep, and I unbound him, and
as I did so he murmured as if angry, though he did not wake.

Then I thought that I would leave him there for some other to find,
and try to make my way to house or village where I might get food.
I could send men thence to seek him, but I cared not if I never set
eyes on him again, hoping, indeed, that I should not do so.

So I turned and walked inland through the thin