incomparable sweetness. He seemed to
see the heart of Melilot beating before him.

But now there came a blast of fire behind him, for the Fire-eaters had
disappeared, and all was whirling and shaken before his eyes; and the
Plough sped desperately over earthquake and space. For the plucking
of the Rose had awakened the giant from his sleep; and the dream
shrivelled and spun away in a whirl of flame-coloured vapours. Leaping
into clear day out of the unravelment of its mists, Noodle found
himself and his Plough launching over an edge of precipice for a
downward dive into space. The giant's hair, standing upright from his
head in the wrath and horror of his awakening, made a forest ending in
his forehead that bowered them to right and to left. Quitting it they
slid ungovernably over the bulge of his brow, and went at full spurt
for the abyss.

Dexterously the Plough steered its descent, catching on the bridge and
furrowing the ridge of the nose; nine leagues were the duration of a
second.

The giant, thinking some venomous parasite was injuring his flesh,
aimed, and a moment too late had thumped his fist upon the place. But
already the Plough skirting the amazed opening of his mouth was lost
in the trammels of his beard. Thence, as it escaped the rummaging
of his fingers, it flew scouring his breast, and inflicted a flying
scratch over the regions of his abdomen. Then, still believing it to
be the triumphal procession of a flea, he pursued it to his thigh, and
mistaking the shadow for the substance allowed it yet again to escape.
At his knee-cap there was but a hair's-breadth between Noodle and the
weight of his thumb; but thereafter the Plough out-distanced his every
effort, and, with Noodle preserved whole and alive, sped fast and far,
bearing the Burning Rose to the heart of the beloved Melilot.

The crone was aware of his coming before she heard him, or saw the
gleam of his Plough running beam-like over the land. From her seat by
the Princess's bower she clapped her hands, and springing to his neck
ere he alighted: 'A long way off, and a long time off,' she cried, 'I
knew what fortune was with you; for when you plucked off the Rose,
and bore it out of the heart of the dream, the scent of it filled the
world; and I felt the sweetness of youth once more in my blood.'

Then she led him to the Princess, and bade him lay the Rose in her
breast, that her heart might be won back into the world. Looking at
her face aga