and sends a messenger to Layla's
father to demand her in marriage with his friend. But the damsel's
parent scornfully refused to comply, and Noufal then marches with his
followers against him. A battle ensues, in which Noufal is victorious.
The father of Layla then comes to Noufal, and offers submission; but he
declares that rather than consent to his daughter's union with Majnun he
would put her to death before his face. Seeing the old man thus
resolute, Noufal abandons his enterprise and returns to his own country.

And now Ibn Salam, having waited the appointed time, comes with his
tribesmen to claim the hand of Layla; and, spite of her tears and
protestations, she is married to the wealthy young chief. Years pass
on--weary years of wedded life to poor Layla, whose heart is ever true
to her wandering lover. At length a stranger seeks out Majnun, and tells
him that his beloved Layla wishes to have a brief interview with him,
near her dwelling. At once the frantic lover speeds towards the
rendezvous; but when Layla is informed of his arrival, her sense of duty
overcomes the passion of her life, and she resolves to forego the
dangerous meeting, and poor Majnun departs without having seen his
darling. Henceforth he is a constant dweller in the desert, having for
his companions the beasts and birds of the wilderness--his clothes in
tatters, his hair matted, his body wasted to a shadow, his bare feet
lacerated with thorns. After the lapse of many more years the husband of
Layla dies, and the beautiful widow passes the prescribed period of
separation (_'idda_),[121] after which Majnun hastens to embrace his
beloved. Overpowered by the violence of their emotions, both are for a
space silent; at length Layla addresses Majnun in tender accents; but
when he finds voice to reply it is evident that the reaction has
completely extinguished the last spark of reason: Majnun is now a
hopeless maniac, and he rushes from the arms of Layla and seeks the
desert once more. Layla never recovered from the shock occasioned by
this discovery. She pined away, and with her last breath desired her
mother to convey the tidings of her death to Majnun, and to assure him
of her constant, unquenchable affection. When Majnun hears of her death
he visits her tomb, and, exhausted with his journey and many privations,
he lays himself down on the turf that covered her remains, and dies--the
victim of pure, ever-during love.

[121] According to Muslim l