At the evening banquet, Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Hobbiton drank so much mead that he began stumbling over his words.
But after Allen talked him through his troubles, he finally smiled more often. In his drunken rambling, he said he would set out tomorrow to visit Thorin at the Lonely Mountain, see Balin at Mount Gundabad, and then call on the other Dwarves in Moria.
Allen readily agreed with the drunken Bilbo, promising to arrange an escort to the Lonely Mountain. In truth, Bilbo probably would not be leaving anytime soon. Something momentous was about to happen, and Allen needed his help.
Before the banquet, he had already dispatched several teams of messengers carrying letters in his own hand to Rivendell, the Golden Wood, Moria, and Thranduil's Hall.
In those letters, he explained that he had a matter of utmost importance to discuss and wished to convene a council of the northern lords in Fisslet. The safety of all Middle-earth was at stake.
If he assumed the worst about the present situation, then the Ring had already returned to its master. What would Sauron do first?
Probably not put it on immediately. The Wise who possessed the Three Rings would sense him at once and know that the Ring had returned to the enemy. Yet Allen had heard nothing of the sort.
With something so serious, Gandalf should already have come to his door and told him to prepare for war.
That left the possibility that Sauron would use the Ring's power to rebuild the Dark Lord's terrifying, savage body. After all, sitting in Barad-dûr with one great eye open day after day probably grew rather dull.
Of course, that was only Allen's guess. The Shire lay far more than a thousand miles from Mordor. Those Black Númenóreans might not