I did not recoil an inch. I am sure of that, for I felt no apprehension. I was beyond apprehension—save over delay. But Allen's hand came back empty. "I'll tell you at once," he said brokenly. "But please sit down. Don't go just yet. We'll have to come to a decision straightaway." Then, seeing I was turning to go: "It's just this: Rona wants you to paint her picture—on the schooner—the Cora. Wants a picture done of the whole layout—ship, Bell, her, me, Ranga, niggers, everything. Says she'll pose for it on the schooner. Says I must pose too. Seems to be bitten with the idea of perpetuating the event for posterity, or something of the kind. Crazy scheme, but she's set her heart on it. Says when it's done, if she likes it, she may go back to the Islands with me. Nothing certain for me, but it's a chance and I've got to make the most of it. Will you do it, Whitney? She says you've always wanted to paint her picture, and now she's all for it. You won't turn it down, Whitney?"
The incongruity of "Slant" Allen in the rôle of a plaintive pleader struck me with scarcely less astonishment than his strange and unexpected request. I was, however, totally unfit to cogitate upon either just then.
"I'll think it over and let you know tomorrow," I said dully. "Got to go now."
"It has to be decided here and now, once and for all," Allen answered firmly. "Here!—" This time there was no hesitation in the movement of his hand to the hip-pocket hump. When it came back it was holding a fat stubby flask—one of the thermos type, just coming into general use at that time.
"I know what's calling you away, Whitney," he said steadily, unscrewing the top of the flask and pouring into it a bright green liquid with a familiar smell and sparkle. "On the off chance that we might be detained beyond the hour when you're used to depending upon it, I had this cooled at the Marble Bar—old hangout of mine—and brought it along with me. Don't use the stuff myself, but I know the hooks it throws into a man who does use it. Drink hearty!"
He handed me both the brimming screw-top and the flask itself. The contents of the former might have been drugged heavily enough to kill a horse for all I cared. It was absinthe beyond a doubt, and cold enough to frost the outside of the little nickled cup that held it. I gulped it down hungrily; replenished and repeated. The third cup I drank less greedily, letting my eyes rove slowly where the jerkily jagged zigzags of hill and headland and foreshore were smoothing into a softer fluency of contour. Sipping the fourth cup, I unbuttoned my coat to give more intimacy to the caress of the milk-warm evening breeze.
"Not bad stuff, Allen," I breathed at last. "Very good of you to think of it. What was it you wanted me to do just now?" Five minutes later I had promised to meet "Slant" Allen at the railway station in time to catch the nine-thirty train for Brisbane, en route Townsville.
It appeared that Rona's ultimatum had stipulated that Allen was to be back in Townsville with me, ready to begin arranging for the picture, inside of ten days. The only northbound boat, the Waga Tiri, which would arrive within the limit, had already left Sydney but could be overtaken at Brisbane by entraining at once. Allen had booked sleepers for the express and wired for cabins on the steamer before he called on me at the Australia. There was nothing left to do but throw together what things I wanted and get to the station.
It was rather a wrench, checking myself after getting all poised for flight with the "Green Lady," but not so hard as it would have been had I really "got off the ground." The contents of Allen's flask were hardly more than a strong bracer. Once I got back to the hotel and into my packing, it was easy going, especially as my enthusiasm was mounting for the work ahead. To have Rona for a model at last! And for such a picture!
The dramatic appeal of the thing grew on me with every passing minute. It was not, to be sure, quite the kind of a work I was best prepared to do. With my ambition to become a marine painter, I had gone in more for colour than for anatomy and drawing; but I was still confident that I could make good with anything that gripped my imagination strongly. And "The Saving of the Black-birder" (I had already given it a tentative name) fairly took me by the throat. I would not fail with it. Nay, more, I would triumph. Perhaps—why not?—Paris! Yes, "The Black-birder" should open a short-cut to my goal. The rails beneath the wheels of the speeding Brisbane Express were clicking black-bir-der—black-bir-der when I dropped off to sleep that night somewhere along toward the Queensland boundary.