Near the foremast, on the weather side, his feet and ankles hidden in ice, stood a huge negro holding over his head at full length the figure of a living man, his attitude indicating an intention to hurl him to the deck. On his dark, evil face, as on the faces of the dead men, was an expression of terror and pain.
But the face of the living man held over his head showed nothing. I had not yet painted the face, and that was why I wanted Old Bill, to take the pose and assume a terrified look. I had painted the others from my imagination, taking care only to make each one different; but this living face of a man about to be hurled to death was to be the center of the picture—to be worked out in detail, with all the high lights. A grotesque, Dantesque, Doresque, horrible idea for a picture, one might well think; but its incongruity never struck me as my mind had worked it out.
Old Bill came on time next morning, and, without looking at the painting, climbed to a plank I had placed between two easels about seven feet above the floor. He lay on his side, and at my direction assumed the pose I wanted—arms and legs outstretched, with fingers clutching at nothing. In this, he suited me; but when it came to taking a frightened look, he failed. His wrinkled features went into all sorts of contortions, and I painted, wiped out, and repainted, again and again, then gave it up. The world had treated Old Bill too kindly, I thought, and he could not comprehend fear.
When I had paid him for his time he left, and I painted in the face from imagination alone—giving it, not the wrinkled look of age, but youth, strength, and courage, and the terror that comes to youth and strength and courage when menaced with sudden death. Then, the picture finished, I sat back and smoked, while a weariness came over me that soon merged into slumber, from which I was awakened by a knock at the door. My cold pipe fell from my lips, and I arose to admit my neighbor, tutor, and critic—the old artist.
"There it is," I said, as I led him to the picture. "Old Bill didn't help much. He couldn't—"
"Great God, man!" he interrupted. "What are you doing? I thought you wanted to be original. Have you been through my old drawings?"
"No, I have not," I answered hotly. "What do you mean?"
He did not answer at once. He looked at the picture with eyes that almost bulged, muttering to himself: "Pango Sam, Wong Fing, Landy Jim." Then he turned to me, and said excitedly: "Were you on board that bark?"
I wondered if he had gone crazy, and did not answer.
"No," he said. "It happened before you were born. What manner of man are you—to see into the past? It is not prophecy. Wait!"