ong time he would not be comforted. After a
great many years he grew more cheerful and happy, and began to go
again into his father's beautiful garden with Husain Mahamat. King
Dantal wished his son to marry again. "I will only have Laili for my
wife; I will not marry any other woman," said Prince Majnun. "How can
you marry Laili? Laili is dead. She will never come back to you," said
the father. "Then I'll not have any wife at all," said Prince Majnun.

Meanwhile Laili was living in the jungle where her husband had left
her a little heap of ashes. As soon as Majnun had gone, the fakir had
taken her ashes and made them quite clean, and then he had mixed clay
and water with the ashes, and made the figure of a woman with them,
and so Laili regained her human form, and God sent life into it. But
Laili had become once more a hideous old woman, with a long, long
nose, and teeth like tusks; just such an old woman, excepting her
teeth, as she had been when she came out of the Rohu fish; and she
lived in the jungle, and neither ate nor drank, and she kept on
saying, "Majnun, Majnun; I want Majnun."

At last the angel who had come as a fakir and thrown the powder at
her, said to God, "Of what use is it that this woman should sit in the
jungle crying, crying for ever, 'Majnun, Majnun; I want Majnun,' and
eating and drinking nothing? Let me take her to Prince Majnun."
"Well," said God, "you may do so; but tell her that she must not speak
to Majnun if he is afraid of her when he sees her; and that if he is
afraid when he sees her, she will become a little white dog the next
day. Then she must go to the palace, and she will only regain her
human shape when Prince Majnun loves her, feeds her with his own food,
and lets her sleep in his bed." So the angel came to Laili again as a
fakir and carried her to King Dantal's garden. "Now," he said, "it is
God's command that you stay here till Prince Majnun comes to walk in
the garden, and then you may show yourself to him. But you must not
speak to him, if he is afraid of you; and should he be afraid of you,
you will the next day become a little white dog." He then told her
what she must do as a little dog to regain her human form.

Laili stayed in the garden, hidden in the tall grass, till Prince
Majnun and Husain Mahamat came to walk in the garden. King Dantal was
now a very old man, and Husain Mahamat, though he was really only as
old as Prince Majnun, looked a great deal older than the