God gave me my life again, and
brought me here, after I had stayed a long, long while in the jungle
crying for you, and now I am obliged to be a little dog; but if you
will marry me, I shall not be a little dog any more." Majnun, however,
said "How can I marry an old woman like you? how can you be Laili? I
am sure you are a Rakshas or a demon come to eat me," and he was in
great terror.

In the morning the old woman had turned into the little dog, and the
prince went to his father and told him all that had happened. "An old
woman! an old woman! always an old woman!" said his father. "You do
nothing but think of old women. How can a strong man like you be so
easily frightened?" However, when he saw that his son was really in
great terror, and that he really believed the old woman would come
back at night, he advised him to say to her, "I will marry you if you
can make yourself a young girl again. How can I marry such an old
woman as you are?"

That night as he lay trembling in bed the little old woman lay there
in place of the dog, crying, "Majnun, Majnun, I want to marry you. I
have loved you all these long, long years. When I was in my father's
kingdom a young girl, I knew of you, though you knew nothing of me,
and we should have been married then if you had not gone away so
suddenly, and for long, long years I followed you." "Well," said
Majnun, "if you can make yourself a young girl again, I will marry
you."

Laili said, "Oh, that is quite easy. God 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. You must gather it and bring it into your
room and cut it open yourself very gently, and you must not open it
when your father or anybody else is with you, but when you are quite
alone; for I shall be in the fruit quite naked, without any clothes at
all on." In the morning Laili took her little dog's form, and
disappeared in the garden.

Prince Majnun told all this to his father, who told him to do all the
old woman had bidden him. In two days' time he and the Wazir's son
walked in the garden, and there they saw a large, lovely red fruit.
"Oh!" said the Prince, "I wonder shall I find my wife in that fruit."
Husain Mahamat wanted him to gather it and see, but he would not till
he had told his father, who said, "That must be the fruit; go and
gather it." So Majnun went back and broke the fruit off its stalk; and
he said to his father, "Come with m