LAYLA AND MAJNUN
Yemen with orders from their chief. Noufal and his band of warriors set out for the rendezvous, but the chief of Yemen waited for the return of his messengers.
Meanwhile Laylá, on her father's estate among the mountains, lived in the depths of misery. The young chief Ibn Salám, well favoured of her father, was continually pleading for her hand in marriage, but Laylá's protestations and tears so moved her father that he was fain to say to the handsome and wealthy suitor, 'She is not yet of age; wait a little while and all will be well.' For Basrah looked with a calculating eye on this young chief, who had splendid possessions and many thousands of warriors. As for Laylá, she immured herself from the light of day, communing only with the stars by night, and saying within her heart, 'I will die a maiden rather than marry any but Majnún, who is now, alas! distracted, even as I.'
Now Laylá, well knowing that her doves were nesting in 'yonder tree,' had left them to the care of the attendants at the palace. They had always been a solace to her, especially since one had been Love's messenger, and she missed that solace now. A young tiger, obedient only to an Ethiopian slave, could not speak to her of love as the doves had done! But one day a slave-girl brought her a bird of paradise, saying, 'My boy lover caught this in the forests of the hills and bade me offer it to thee for thy kindness to me.'
Laylá treasured the bird in her solitude, and soon discovered that it could imitate the sounds of her voice. On this she straight-way taught it one word, and one word only. Then she would sit for hours, with the bird perched on the back of her hand, listening to its soft intonation of that one word: 'Majnún.' Again and again and again the bird would speak softly in her ear that sweetest name in all the world: 'Majnún, Majnún, Majnún,' and her heart would leave her bosom and range through the desolation of the desert, seeking always Majnún.
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