"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.
That the morrow should bring some reaction from this fine frenzy was inevitable, but it was a comparatively slight one. That Allen had deliberately planned to draw me away and take advantage of my weakness for absinthe to gain my intervention in his favour was evident enough. Indeed, the consummate manner in which he turned the trick argued an almost pathological intimacy with the reaction of the insidiously subtle essence of wormwood upon the human brain. But I did not hold this heavily against him. It was plain that he had only done it to play safe in a matter respecting which he did not dare to take any unnecessary chances of failure. I could not but admit to myself that I would probably have fallen in with the plan ultimately in any event. There was no disloyalty to my friend in making him (as I intended to do) the central figure in a picture that I hoped would become famous in two hemispheres. On the contrary, what greater tribute was there I could pay to his memory? If Rona cared to flaunt that memory by going off to the Islands with Allen, it was her own kettle of fish. Besides, she had not gone yet; didn't even appear to have committed herself definitely in the matter.