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, stretched out his hand in haste to the nearest flower, lest in a little while he should be no more than a part of the giant's dream. 'O beloved Heart of Melilot!' he cried, and crushed his fingers upon the stem.