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He was high over a farm-house now: one that he used to see from the bald hill. He knew it by the tall pine-trees that grew round it; and down in the farm-yard he saw a man with a bucket going out to feed the calves. Neville called loudly to him, but the man did not even look up. Now he was far beyond that farm-house and above an orchard, where he saw the fruit-trees standing in straight rows; and a few seconds later the mountain range was beneath him, and Neville knew that the cloud that looked like a horse was making straight for the golden gateway, which was now glowing dully in a grey sky. He was riding into the sunset.

Swiftly as the wind that drove it, the Cloud Horse drifted over the mountain range. There was a sudden glow of golden light all about him, and then a flash of colour so wonderful that Neville could not bear to look. He closed his eyes, and, as he did so, he felt that the Cloud Horse had come to a halt at last.

So Neville sat upon the cloud, not daring to open his eyes for quite a long time. When at last he did look again he almost fainted with the wonder of it. He was inside the sunset.

But scarcely had he begun to enjoy the wonderful sight, when he was startled by the sound of a funny, shrill little voice close by his side. Looking down, he saw a strange little man, no taller than a walking-stick, and dressed from top to toe in golden-yellow clothes. “My stars!” said the wee yellow man. “How did YOU manage to get in here? Don’t you know this is private?”

“I’m very sorry,” said Neville, “but I couldn’t help it. The Cloud Horse brought me, you know.”

“Ah!” said the wee yellow man. “He tricked you, did he? He’s much too playful, that Cloud Horse; and, I must say, he’s put you in a pretty fix.”

“Excuse me,” said Neville, “but do you mind telling me who you are?”

“I?” cried the little yellow man. “Why, I’m the Last Sunbeam, of course. I thought you knew that. My job, you know, is to shut up the show when the sunset is over. And it’s pretty hard work, I can tell you, because I’ve got to keep on doing it all round the earth every few minutes or so. And it gets very tiresome at times. Would you believe it? I’ve never seen a dawn or a bright mid-day in all my life–just sunsets all the time. Sunsets for breakfast, sunsets for dinner, sunsets for supper. And if I make the tiniest little slip, the head scene-shifter is down on me like a ton of bricks.”

“Goodness me!” said Neville. “I didn’t know you had scene-shifters here.” Neville had been to see pantomimes, and therefore knew what a scene-shifter was.

“Then how do you think we shift the scenes?” cried the wee yellow man rather crossly. Then he suddenly became very busy about nothing, as he whispered, “Look out! Here’s the head scene-shifter coming now.”

Looking back, Neville saw, coming towards them, a man with very large ears. He was not a nice-looking man, and he was extremely like the cloud man that Neville had sometimes seen in the sky when he went to look at the sunset from the bald hill.

“Now then! Now then!” roared the man with the large ears. “Move yourself there, Goldie! We shut up the show here in a few minutes, and open at once on the next range. See that you have that curtain down on time.”

“Certainly, sir,” replied the little yellow man very humbly.

Then the man with the large ears noticed Neville for the first time. He frowned darkly, and his big ears seemed to flap with annoyance.

“Who is this on our Cloud Horse?” he roared in his great angry voice.