Nevertheless a great weight was taken from the King's mind when his guest came back to life again in the morning. It was noted that the man was none the worse for his strange experience. He seemed even better for it. He was more active and alert. His eye was brighter. He was instantly ready to undertake the fatigue of swimming for a long distance in the sea.
That morning, as he conversed with the Princess Melissa, he tried to explain to her something even more strange than sleep—the dreams that come to one in sleep. The two walked alone through the forest together.
"Tell me," said the Princess, "do you think that I also could sleep and have a dream? I know it is bizarre and morbid, but I long passionately and above all things to have this strange experience."
"So far as I can judge," said her companion, "you are constructed precisely as the women of the rest of the world, where sleep is a nightly event. I may be wrong, but I should imagine that if the initial impulse could be given to you, you also would sleep."
The Princess clasped her hands in ecstasy. "How perfectly splendid!" she said. "But then how am I to get the initial impulse?"
"What," asked the man, "is that glow of red amid the yellow in the field yonder?"
"That is where poppies grow among ripening corn. But what have they to do with the initial impulse?"
"They are it," said the stranger; "by means of those poppies I could prepare for you the secret of sleep. But there would be a risk."
"You told me just now that in a dream it seemed to you that you were sitting in a boat with an elephant, drinking tea, and the elephant had on a small white coat with a rose in its buttonhole. That seemed as real to you in the dream as it seems now that you are walking with me on the edge of the forest?"
"Quite as real, absolutely real."