Sauron was caught in the cataclysm he had helped bring about. His body perished, and he could never again assume a fair form. He fled back to Middle-earth as a monstrous spirit of hatred that passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, returning to Mordor. Some of his servants, the Black Númenóreans, had left the island before its destruction, and continued to serve Sauron in Middle-earth; one of these was the nameless Mouth of Sauron, Sauron's lieutenant, who spoke to the Captains of the West before the Battle of the Morannon.