Very softly, the Old-Green-Grasshopper started to play the Funeral March on his violin, and by the time he had finished, everyone, including himself, was in a flood of tears.
Suddenly, there came three sharp tugs on the rope. 'Pull!' shouted the Old-Green-Grasshopper. 'Everyone get behind me and pull!'
There was about a mile of string to be hauled in, but they all worked like mad, and in the end, over the side of the peach, there appeared a dripping-wet James with a dripping-wet Centipede clinging to him tightly with all forty-two of his legs.
'He saved me!' gasped the Centipede. 'He swam around in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean until he found me!'
'My dear boy,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said, patting James on the back. 'I do congratulate you.'
'My boots!' cried the Centipede. 'Just look at my precious boots! They are ruined by the water!'
'Be quiet!' the Earthworm said. 'You are lucky to be alive.'
'Are we still going up and up?' asked James.
'We certainly are,' answered the Old-Green-Grasshopper. 'And it's beginning to get dark.'
'I know. It'll soon be night.'
'Why don't we all go down below and keep warm until tomorrow morning?' Miss Spider suggested.
'No,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said. 'I think that would be very unwise. It will be safer if we all stay up here through the night and keep watch. Then, if anything happens, we shall anyway be ready for it.'
Twenty-seven
James Henry Trotter and his companions crouched close together on top of the peach as the night began closing 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 moon came up over the tops of the clouds and cast an eerie light over the whole scene. The giant peach swayed gently from side to side as it floated along, and the hundreds of silky white strings going upward 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 an aeroplane. The aeroplane comes clattering and roaring through the sky, and whatever might be lurking secretly up there in the great cloud-mountains goes running for cover at its approach. That is why people 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 floated along. And several times during that long silent night ride high up over the middle of the ocean in the moonlight, 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, wispy-looking things that were about twice the height of ordinary men. They were not easy to see at first because they were almost as white as the cloud itself, but as the peach sailed closer, it became obvious that these 'things' were actually living creatures - tall, wispy, wraithlike, shadowy, white creatures who looked as though they were made out of a mixture of cotton-wool and candyfloss and thin 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, huddling closer together for comfort. 'Oh dear, oh dear!'
'I'm glad I'm blind and can't see them,' the Earthworm said, 'or I would probably scream.'
'I hope they don't turn round and see us,' Miss Spider stammered.
'Do you think they would eat us?' the Earthworm asked.
'They would eat you,' the Centipede answered, grinning. 'They would cut you up like a salami and eat you in thin slices.'
The poor Earthworm began to quiver all over with fright.
'But what are they doing?' the Old-Green-Grasshopper whispered.
'I don't know,' James answered softly. 'Let's watch and see.'
The Cloud-Men were all standing in a group, and they were doing something peculiar with their hands. First, they would reach out (all of them at once) and grab handfuls of cloud. Then they would roll these handfuls of cloud in their fingers until they turned into what looked like large white marbles. Then they would toss the marbles to one side and quickly grab more bits of cloud and start ov
er again.
It was all very silent and mysterious. The pile of marbles beside them kept growing larger and larger. Soon there was a truckload of them there at least.