thought so wonderful as once it was. But loafing along through the air

in a biplane or a monoplane at eighty or a hundred miles an hour is a

very tame business when you compare it with racing the day round the

world on a Cloud Horse. And Neville is very probably the only person

who has ever done that yet.

Almost before he knew what had happened, he had left evening far

behind and was riding in broad daylight. The Cloud Horse had ridden

high in the air, and Neville saw the broad country, with plains and

hills and forest lands, stretched far beneath him. An instant later,

and the land was no longer below him, but the wide sea, sparkling in

brilliant sunlight.

Before he had time to notice very much he had reached mid-day, high

over a strange foreign land, and was racing through the morning toward

the dawn. So quickly did he go that there was little chance of seeing

anything clearly; but he had glimpses of many strange sights. Many

ships he saw upon the sea--small ships and stately steamers crawling

over the ocean like strange water-beetles. Once, as the Cloud Horse

drifted low, Neville saw a beautiful sailing-ship, with all sails set,

and strange-looking men upon the deck. They looked very like pirates,

and perhaps they were; but Neville had no time to make sure, for the

very next minute he was over a wild land where he saw a horde of black

men, with spears and clubs, hunting an elephant through a clearing in

a great jungle. As he looked, the elephant turned to charge the

hunters; but what happened then Neville did not see, for in a moment

more he was above a great city with crowds of people in the

streets--people dressed in strange, bright-coloured clothes--and there

were bells ringing and whistles blowing. Then a great desert spread

beneath him, with no living thing in sight but a great tawny lion

prowling over the sand. Then came the sea again, and more ships; and

the light began to grow dim, for he was nearly half-way round the

earth, and was approaching the dawn.

Dimmer grew the light, and dimmer yet, just as though evening were

coming--and before him, Neville saw the dawn like a silvery gateway in

the sky. Straight toward it the Cloud Horse rushed, and stopped so

suddenly that Neville almost fell off.

"What's all this? What's all this?" cried a small voice; and Neville

saw beside the silver gateway, a little man dressed from top to toe in

silver grey. It was the Porter of the Dawn, sometimes called the First

Sunbeam.

Before Neville could answer, the little grey man had caught sight of

the Sky Flower.

"Ah, you have the talisman," said he. "Pass in! And don't stop to

gossip, because I'm very busy this morning. A pleasant journey," he

added as he smacked the Cloud Horse on the shoulder; and in an instant

Neville had passed through the dawn and plunged into the night.

It was a dark night, with no moon, for the sky was overcast with dense

clouds. Above these the Cloud Horse flew, and overhead Neville saw the

rushing stars, and below only the blackness of heavy clouds. But more

often the Cloud Horse flew low, and then there was little to be seen.

By the lights of moving ships Neville knew that sometimes he was above

the sea. Sometimes twinkling lights in towns or solitary farms, or the

sudden blaze of a great city told him that the land was beneath him.

Once, through the blackness, he saw a great forest fire upon an

island, and the light of it lit up the sea, and showed the natives

crowded upon the beach and in the shallows, and some making off in

canoes.

Then darkness swallowed the Cloud Horse again, and the blazing island

was left far behind.

Stay tuned for the final installment of The Boy Who Rode Into the Sunset.

For kids who love stories about white horses, a must-read is

Saving Bluestone Belle, the award-winning comic-

adventure novel by Strawberry Shakespeare. Click the link below to

see the eye-popping book cover and learn more about this rollicking

adventure tale!