When they were gone, the Stone looked up at the Nightingale, and said:
“Oh, why did they go? I like to hear them talk, and they are so pretty; they can find no shelter out there, and they will die at once. See! in my side there is a large hole where it is quite dark, and into which no rain can come. Fly after them and tell them to come, that I will shelter them.” So the Nightingale spread his wings, and flew, singing:
“Come back, come back! The Stone will shelter you. Come back at once before the rain falls.”
They had wandered out into an open field, but when she heard the Nightingale, the Moonbeam turned her head and said:
“Surely that is the Nightingale singing. See! he is calling us.”
“Follow me,” sang the bird. “Back at once to shelter in the Stone.” But the Moonbeam tottered and fell.
“I am grown so weak and pale,” she said, “I can no longer move.”
Then the Nightingale flew to earth. “Climb upon my back,” he said, “and I will take you both back to the Stone.” So they both sat upon his back, and he flew with them to the large Stone beneath the tree.
“Go in,” he said, stopping in front of the hole; and both passed into the hole, and nestled in the darkness within the Stone.
Then the rain began. All day long it rained, and the Nightingale sat in his nest half asleep. But when the Moon rose, after the sun had set, the clouds cleared away, and the air was again full of tiny silver ladders, down which the Moonbeams came, but the Nightingale looked in vain for his own particular Moonbeam. He knew she could not shine on him again, therefore he mourned, and sang a sorrowful song. Then he flew down to the Stone, and sang a song at the mouth of the hole, but there came no answer. So he looked down the hole, into the Stone, but there was no trace of the Sunbeam or the Moonbeam—only one shining spot of light, where they had rested. Then the Nightingale knew that they had faded away and died.