Long before Marlow saw the island, he heard it.
It came to him across the wide dark water while he was still half asleep among his reeds — a small thread of melody, faint and gold, rising and falling, rising and falling, the way a swing slows down at the end of the afternoon. It was not loud. It never once tried to be loud. It simply drifted out across the Sea of Dreams, patient and warm, and wrapped itself softly around the little boat and would not quite let go.
"Now there's a lovely sound," said Marlow, in his slow and unhurried way, and he lay still and listened, and the boat drifted on toward it of its own gentle accord.
And there, at last, was the island.
It was a small island, and a soft one, and it glowed. All over it grew a moss the colour of green and gold together, the colour leaves go for one quiet hour just before the sun goes down, and every little leaf of it gave off a light so gentle you could have looked at it all night and never once needed to blink. Among the moss bloomed small round flowers that opened and closed, slowly, in time with the song — open on the rising notes, closed on the falling ones — so that the whole island seemed to breathe, in, and out, and in.
And in the middle of the island, on a little hummock of that glowing moss, sat the singer.
It was a very small creature. Smaller than Marlow, and rounder, and softer — a little grey thing all puffed up like a dandelion clock, with a throat that glowed faint gold when it sang, and great dark patient eyes. It sat quite still and sang its slow song out across the sea, and it did not stop when the boat drew near, because the song was the kind that does not like to be stopped once it is started.
Marlow waited. He was good at waiting. He waited until the song came round at last to its softest, lowest place — the place where it seemed about to drift off into nothing — and then, very gently, he said:
"That is the kindest song I have ever heard. Thank you for singing it."
The little creature looked at him with its great dark eyes. "Oh," it said, and its voice, speaking, was even softer than its voice singing. "You're welcome. I sing it for everyone. I'm the one who sings the sea to sleep."
"Are you?" said Marlow.
"Every night," said the little singer. "When the sun goes down, all the sleepy things come near — the fish, and the far-off whales, and the tired waves themselves — and I sing, and one by one they settle, and close their eyes, and drift away into dreaming. The whole sea sleeps to my singing." It said this with no pride at all, only a kind of soft, tired wonder. "It's a very good job. I love it more than anything."
"I can tell," said Marlow. "The whole sea is the gentler for it." He looked at the little creature a moment longer — at its drooping, dandelion softness, at the great dark eyes that were trying so hard to stay open. "And tell me," he said. "When everyone else is asleep — who sings you to sleep?"
The singer was quiet. Its gold throat dimmed, just a little.
"Oh," it said again. "Why — no one. There's no one left awake by then, you see. By the time the whole sea is sleeping, I'm the only one still up. So I just… keep singing, until the morning comes and takes the song away. I've never minded. Somebody has to be last."
"That's a great deal of singing," said Marlow gently, "for someone who is so very tired."
And it was true — now that he looked, he could see how tired the little creature was. Its eyes kept slipping closed and then blinking open again, the way your own eyes do when you are fighting sleep at the end of a long, good day. It had sung everyone in the whole wide sea safely off to dreaming, night after night after night, and had never once been sung to itself.
"Would you let me try something?" Marlow asked. "You've sung your song so many times. I think I've almost learned it, just from listening on the way in. Why don't you lie back in the soft moss — there, like that — and close your eyes, and let me sing it for a change. You can tell me if I get it wrong."
The little singer hesitated. "But then who will sing the sea to sleep?"
"The sea is already sleeping," said Marlow. "Listen. It's only you that's still awake. And tonight, just tonight, you don't have to be."
So the little creature, after a moment, lay back in the glowing moss — slowly, the way you sink into a very soft pillow — and folded its small grey wings, and looked up at Marlow with its great dark eyes already half closed.
And Marlow began to sing.
He sang the little song back the way it had been sung to him — rising and falling, rising and falling, soft and gold and slow. He did not get all the notes right. He got rather a lot of them wrong, if the truth be told. But it did not matter even slightly, because it was the first time in all the singer's long life that the song had ever come toward it instead of out of it, and that made it the most beautiful version the song had ever been.
The little creature's eyes slipped closed.
"Oh," it murmured, almost asleep already. "Oh, that's… that's what it feels like. I never knew. I never knew it felt so…"
And it did not finish, because it was asleep — properly, deeply, softly asleep, for the first time before sunrise in longer than it could remember. Its gold throat dimmed to a tiny warm ember. Its small chest rose and fell, slow and even, in time with the breathing flowers.
Marlow let his song trail off, very gently, so as not to wake it. The island glowed on, quiet now, lit only by the resting moss and the closed and dreaming flowers.
"Sleep well, little singer," he whispered. "You've earned it more than anyone. I'll hum the rest, so the quiet doesn't wake you."
And he lay back among his reeds, and the boat drew softly away from the glowing shore, and Marlow hummed — low, and patient, and not quite in tune — out across the sleeping sea, so that there would be a song in the air all the same, and no one, anywhere, would be the last one left awake.
The island fell away behind, a small green-gold glow growing smaller. The swells lifted the little boat and set it down, slow, and soft, and slow. Marlow's own eyes grew heavy at last. The hum of the boat wrapped round him like a blanket.
And far ahead, where the sea met the sky, he thought he saw the water change — a long pale line of silver, and beyond it a sound like the softest possible bells, where something he could not yet name was turning slowly in the dark, waiting to be reached.
But that, little one, is a tale for tomorrow night.
Tonight there is only the sea. And the little singer, asleep at last. And the hum.
Slow and soft. That's the way.
Sleep softly.
Marlow will wait for you, just around the bend.