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"Well," said Majnun, "if you can make yourself a young girl again, I will marry you." Laili said, "Oh, that is quite easy. Khuda will make me a young girl again. In two days' time you must go into the garden, and there you will see a beautiful fruit.
But he would not allow any but their servants to enter their gardens and palace, and he would not allow Majnun to go out of them, nor Laili; "for," said King Dantal, "Laili is so beautiful, that perhaps some one may kill my son to take her away." Once upon a time, a tiger was caught in a trap. He tried in vain to get out through the bars, and rolled and bit with rage and grief when he failed.
But Allah knows that there is not a laugh in all their bodies. So I have kept him from approaching them. The word 'majnûn, which I have here translated 'mad, has often, as I knew, a complimentary value; and I gathered from Suleymân's way of speaking that the cook was not a raving maniac, but rather what in English country-places we should call 'a character.
At the end of the twelve years she met a fakir he was really an angel, but she did not know this who asked her, "Why do you always say, 'Majnun, Majnun; I want Majnun'?" She answered, "I am the daughter of the king of the Phalana country, and I want to find Prince Majnun; tell me where his kingdom is."
Literally, "recite the la haul," &c, vide note 2, p. 5. Jogis are Hindu ascetics, or fanatics; some of them let the nails grow through the palm of their hands by keeping their fists shut, &c. The maunis are Hindu ascetics who vow everlasting silence. The sevras are mendicants of the Jain sects. Majnun is a mad lover of eastern romance, who pined in vain for the cruel Laili.
"I think you will never get there," said the fakir, "for it is very far from hence, and you have to cross many rivers to reach it." But Laili said she did not care; she must see Prince Majnun. "Well," said the fakir, "when you come to the Bhagirathi river you will see a big fish, a Rohu; and you must get him to carry you to Prince Majnun's country, or you will never reach it."
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 prince, who had been made quite young again when he married Laili. As Prince Majnun and the Wazir's son walked in the garden, they gathered the fruit as they had done as little children, only they bit the fruit with their teeth; they did not cut it.
Laili looked at him beseechingly with all her eyes, and trembled with age and eagerness; but this only frightened Majnun the more. "It is a Rakshas, a Rakshas!" he cried, and he ran quickly to the palace with the Wazir's son; and as they ran away, Laili disappeared into the jungle. They ran to King Dantal, and Majnun told him there was a Rakshas or a demon in the garden that had come to eat them.
"Twenty-four years ago you came to my father the Phalana Raja's country, and I wanted to marry you then; but you went away without marrying me. Then I went mad, and I have wandered about all these years looking for you." Prince Majnun said, "Very good." "Pray to Khuda," said Laili, "to make us both young again, and then we shall be married."
They used to go out hunting, and they often went from country to country to eat the air and amuse themselves. One day Prince Majnun said to Laili, "Let us go through this jungle." "No, no," said Laili; "if we go through this jungle, some harm will happen to me." But Prince Majnun laughed, and went into the jungle.
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