The warm gold lights came slowly nearer.
All night the little boat had drifted across the wide dark sea, and now, low on the water far ahead, Marlow saw them clearly at last: a long soft row of little golden lights, gentle as candle-flames behind a window, each one resting just above its own small reflection. And as the boat drew near, slow and soft, slow and soft, he saw that every light was a little lamp on a little post, and that the posts stood in quiet rows in still, sheltered water, and that the still water was full of boats.
They were all manner of boats — little round ones and long thin ones, boats of bark and boats of leaf, boats with reed sails and boats with none at all — and every single one of them was asleep. Each lay quiet beside its own gold lamp, tied by a soft loop of rope to its own gold post, rocking the smallest rock in the world, the way a cradle rocks when the hand that pushed it has long since gone still.
"Why," murmured Marlow, "it's a harbour. A harbour for tired boats."
And along the rows, hurrying soft from post to post, went the keeper of the harbour.
It was a small, round, whiskered creature, something like an otter and something like a quiet thought, with neat little paws and a coil of soft silver rope looped over one shoulder. As each new boat came drifting in out of the dark, the keeper would catch its rope, ever so gently, and loop it round a gold post, and pat the boat once, and whisper, "There now. You're in. You're held," — and the boat would settle, and sleep.
Marlow let his own boat drift in among the rows, and at once the keeper came hurrying.
"Welcome in, welcome in," it whispered, catching Marlow's rope in its careful paws. "You've come a long way, I can see it. Let me tie you safe." And it looped the rope soft around a gold post, and patted the boat once, and said, "There now. You're in. You're held."
"Thank you," said Marlow warmly. "That is the kindest mooring I have ever had. And how long have you been catching boats tonight?"
"Oh — all night," said the keeper, already turning to the next post, and the next, tugging each loop to be sure, leaning close to each sleeping boat to listen that it breathed slow. "All night, like always. Someone has to. They come in so tired, you see, from all over the sea, and a tired boat can't tie itself. If I miss even one — if even one drifts in and finds no paw to catch it — why, it might drift out again into the dark, and never find the lights at all."
And Marlow saw, as he watched, how very tired the little keeper was. Its eyes were heavy. Its paws moved slower than its worry wanted them to. Yet it would not stop. It went from post to post to post, checking loops that were already snug, listening to boats that already slept, because — Marlow understood — it could never quite be sure. It could never quite be sure that every last boat was safe. And so it never once let itself be still.
"There is one boat," said Marlow gently, "that I don't believe has been tied up all night long."
The keeper blinked. "Which? Show me, show me — I'll see to it at once."
"You," said Marlow.
The little keeper stopped, just for a moment, as though the thought had never once come to it. "But I'm the keeper," it said. "I'm the one who ties. Nobody ties the keeper. If I sleep, who will catch the boats?"
Marlow looked out, then, at the long quiet rows — at all the gold lamps burning soft and steady on their posts, at all the moored boats rocking slow — and he asked, in his unhurried way, "Tell me. Who lit all these lamps?"
"Why — nobody," said the keeper. "They've always burned. They burn on their own. That's the harbour."
"And do they go dark, when you turn your back to tie another boat?"
The keeper thought. "...No," it admitted. "No. They stay lit. They stay lit all on their own."
"Then the boats that come in late," said Marlow softly, "will see the lamps. Just as I did. They'll see the little gold lights low on the water, from far out in the dark, and they'll know the way in — because the harbour keeps its own light, whether you are watching or not. The lamps don't need you awake. They only needed lighting once, long ago, and now they hold the dark all by themselves."
The keeper looked at the lamps a long, long moment. And the lamps burned on, gold and gentle, exactly as they had — and a far late boat came drifting in out of the dark, all by itself, straight toward the glow, and found a post, and bumped it soft, and nestled close, and slept, without any paw to catch it at all.
"Oh," whispered the keeper. "Oh. It found its own way in."
"It did," said Marlow. "Come. Let me do for you the one kind thing you have done for everyone else tonight."
And he reached out from the little moonlight boat, and took the soft silver rope from the keeper's own shoulder, and looped it gentle — once, and twice — around the nearest gold post, and round the keeper's tired middle, soft as a hug, so that it could not drift; and he patted it once, the way it had patted all the boats, and said, in the warmest, slowest voice in all the world:
"There now. You're in. You're held."
And the little keeper, held at last, let its heavy eyes fall closed. It leaned against the warm gold post, in the soft loop of its own kind rope, with all its moored boats rocking slow around it and all its gold lamps burning steady in the dark, and it breathed out, long and slow, and it was asleep before the breath was done.
Marlow tied his own boat snug beside it, so the keeper would not wake alone. And the harbour rocked the smallest rock in the world. And the lamps held the dark. And not one boat drifted, and not one light went out.
And as Marlow's own eyes grew heavy at last, he looked up past the rows of little gold lights — and there, beyond the very furthest lamp, he saw something new: a pale soft stair of mist, rising slow and silver off the still water, climbing up and up into the dark, all the way to the low and watching moon — a quiet road, it seemed, leading gently home into the sky.
But that, little one, is a tale for tomorrow night.
Tonight there is only the still, warm harbour. And the little keeper, held and sleeping. And the soft gold lamps, holding the dark all on their own.
Slow and soft. That's the way.
Sleep softly.
Marlow will wait for you, just around the bend.