If: A Play in Four Acts, Lord Dunsany [any book recommendations TXT] 📗

[Enter ALI, shown in by LIZA.]

ALI

Protector of the Just.

JOHN

O, er—yes. Good evening.

ALI

My soul was parched and you bathed it in rivers of gold.

JOHN

O, ah, yes.

ALI

Wherefore the name Briggs, Cater, and Beal shall be magnified and called blessed.

JOHN

Ha, yes. Very good of you.

ALI [advancing, handing trinket]

Protector of the Just, my offering.

JOHN

Your offering?

ALI

Hush. It is beyond price. I am not bidden to sell it. I was in my extremity, but I was not bidden to sell it. It is a token of gratitude, a gift, as it came to me.

JOHN

As it came to you?

ALI

Yes, it was given me.

JOHN

I see. Then you had given somebody what you call rivers of gold?

ALI

Not gold; it was in Sahara.

JOHN

O, and what do you give in the Sahara instead of gold?

ALI

Water.

JOHN

I see. You got it for a glass of water, like.

ALI

Even so.

JOHN

And—and what happened?

MARY

I wouldn't take his only crystal, dear. It's a nice little thing, but [to ALI], but you think a lot of it, don't you?

ALI

Even so.

JOHN

But look here, what does it do?

ALI

Much.

JOHN

Well, what?

ALI

He that taketh this crystal, so, in his hand, at night, and wishes, saying "At a certain hour let it be"; the hour comes and he will go back eight, ten, even twelve years if he will, into the past, and do a thing again, or act otherwise than he did. The day passes; the ten years are accomplished once again; he is here once more; but he is what he might have become had he done that one thing otherwise.

MARY

John!

JOHN

I—I don't understand.

ALI

To-night you wish. All to-morrow you live the last ten years; a new way, master, a new way, how you please. To-morrow night you are here, what those years have made you.

JOHN

By Jove!

MARY

Have nothing to do with it, John.

JOHN

All right, Mary, I'm not going to. But, do you mean one could go back ten years?

ALI

Even so.

JOHN

Well, it seems odd, but I'll take your word for it. But look here, you can't live ten years in a day, you know.

ALI

My master has power over time.

MARY

John, don't have anything to do with him.

JOHN

All right, Mary. But who is your master?

ALI

He is carved of one piece of jade, a god in the greenest mountains. The years are his dreams. This crystal is his treasure. Guard it safely, for his power is in this more than in all the peaks of his native hills. See what I give you, master.

JOHN

Well, really, it's very good of you.

MARY

Good night, Mr. Ali. We are very much obliged for your kind offer, which we are so sorry we can't avail ourselves of.

JOHN

One moment, Mary. Do you mean that I can go back ten years, and live till—till now again, and only be away a day?

ALI

Start early and you will be here before midnight.

JOHN

Would eight o'clock do!

ALI

You could be back by eleven that evening.

JOHN

I don't quite see how ten years could go in a single day.

ALI

They will go as dreams go.

JOHN

Even so, it seems rather unusual, doesn't it?

ALI

Time is the slave of my master

MARY

John!