There was some brown paint and
some green paint that they used for the boats, and some black paint for
ironwork, and that was all I had."
"The passengers must have thought you mad."
"There was only one, and it was a woman; but it gave me the notion of my
picture."
"What was she like?" said Torpenhow.
"She was a sort of Negroid-Jewess-Cuban; with morals to match. She couldn't
read or write, and she didn't want to, but she used to come down and watch me
paint, and the skipper didn't like it, because he was paying her passage and
had to be on the bridge occasionally."
"I see. That must have been cheerful."
"It was the best time I ever had. To begin with, we didn't know whether we
should go up or go down any minute when there was a sea on; and when it was
calm it was paradise; and the woman used to mix the paints and talk broken
English, and the skipper used to steal down every few minutes to the lower
deck, because he said he was afraid of fire. So, you see, we could never tell
when we might be caught, and I had a splendid notion to work out in only three
keys of colour."
"What was the notion?"
"Two lines in Poe--
'Neither the angels in Heaven above nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
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