ning the draught to wine by the sweetness of his
magic ring.

At length he saw a cloud rising to him from a distance; like a great
opal it hung motionless between earth and heaven. Coming nearer he saw
the giant himself stretched out for a day's journey across the sand.
His head lay under the colours of the dawn, and his feet were covered
with the dusk of evening, and over his middle shone the noonday sun.

Under the giant's shadow Noodle stopped, and gazed up into the cloud;
through the outer covering of its mists he saw what seemed to be balls
of fire, and knew that within lay the dream and the garden of the
Burning Rose.

The giant laughed and muttered in his sleep, for the dream was sweet
to him. 'O Rose,' he said, 'O sweet Rose, what end is there of
thy sweetness? How innumerable is the dance of the Roses of my
Rose-garden!'

Noodle caught hold of the ropes of the giant's hair, and climbed till
he sat within the hollow of his right ear. Then he put to his lips the
ring, the Sweetener, and sang till the giant heard him in his sleep;
and the sweet singing mixed itself with the sweetness of the Rose in
the giant's brain, and he muttered to himself, saying: 'O bee, O sweet
bee, O bee in my brain, what honey wilt thou fetch for me out of the
Roses of my Rose-garden?'

So, more and more, Noodle sweetened himself to the giant, till the
giant passed him into his brain, and into the heart of the dream, even
into the garden of the Burning Rose.

Far down below the folds of the cloud, Noodle remembered that the
Galloping Plough lay waiting a call from him. 'When I have stolen the
Rose,' thought he, 'I may need swift heels for my flight.' And he put
the Sweetener to his lips and whistled the Plough up to him.

It came, cleaving the encirclement of clouds like a silver gleam of
moonlight, and for a moment, where they parted, Noodle saw a rift of
blue sky, and the light of the outer world clear through their midst.

The giant turned uneasily in his sleep, and the garden of the Burning
Rose rocked to its foundations as the edge of things real pierced into
it.

'While I stay here there is danger,' thought Noodle. 'Surely I must
make haste to possess myself of the Rose and to escape!'

All round him was a garden set thick with rose-trees in myriads of
blossom, rose behind rose as far as the eye could reach, and the
fragrance of them lay like a heavy curtain of sleep upon the senses.
Noodle, beginning to feel drowsy, st