Twenty-seven
James Henry Trotter and his companions crouched¹ close together on top of the peach as the night beganclosing in around them. Clouds like mountains towered high above their heads on all sides, mysterious,menacing, overwhelming. Gradually it grew darker and darker, and then a pale three-quarter mooncame up over the tops of the clouds and cast an eerie² light over the whole scene. The giant peachswayed gently from side to side as it floated along, and the hundreds of silky white strings³ goingupward from its stem were beautiful in the moonlight. So also was the great flock of seagulls overhead.
There was not a sound anywhere. Travelling upon the peach was not in the least like travelling in anaeroplane. The aeroplane comes clattering⁴ and roaring through the sky, and whatever might be lurkingsecretly up there in the great cloud-mountains goes running for cover at its approach. That is whypeople who travel in aeroplanes never see anything.
But the peach… ah, yes… the peach was a soft, stealthy traveller, making no noise at all as it floatedalong. And several times during that long silent night ride high up over the middle of the ocean in themoonlight, James and his friends saw things that no one had ever seen before.
Once, as they drifted silently past a massive white cloud, they saw on the top of it a group of strange,tall, wispy⁵-looking things that were about twice the height of ordinary men. They were not easy to seeat first because they were almost as white as the cloud itself, but as the peach sailed closer, it becameobvious that these ‘things’ were actually living creatures – tall, wispy, wraithlike⁶, shadowy, whitecreatures who looked as though they were made out of a mixture of cotton-wool and candyfloss andthin white hairs.
‘Oooooooooooooh!’ the Ladybird said. ‘I don’t like this at all!’
‘Ssshh!’ James whispered back. ‘Don’t let them hear you! They must be Cloud-Men!’
‘Cloud-Men!’ they murmured,

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