"Whispers" are an instrument of fate in HEART OF DARKNESS: it was the wilderness, the jungle that Kurtz exploited, as a trader, that "had whispered to him tidings about himself he did not know. . . and the whisper proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core" (p. 98 in Bantam edition; p.133 in Signet Classic edition). And the whisper of Kurtz's last words (p. 125 in Bantam and p. 153 in Signet Classics) sounds a year after his death, when Marlow is begged to repeat them by Kurtz's fiancee.
Southam, 102.
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The "Whispers" which are "quiet and meaningless" also suggest the futile conspiracy, referenced in the epigraph notes.