Allanamoulin, Allanamoulin.
The refrain is untranslatable; it was as old as the race, I was told; it had been used from generation to generation in paddle-songs, till it had grown rounded and smooth in the stream of time and lost all trace of its inner grain and force. An approach to the meaning would be, “Farewell, Rest! There is none upon earth.” Sneekape and his friends were unwilling to taint their lips with it; for it had been a slave-word for centuries and they considered it beneath contempt. It was difficult even to get some translation of the paddle-song; but verse by verse and line by line I dragged it out of the haughty Figlefians.
Yet when they talked of their slaves, they spoke of them with leniency and even with kindness. Pressing questions home, I found that they considered the lash one of the most benevolent of institutions; it softened the asperities of slave-nature; for slaves were children, and had to be dealt with as children; they did not know what was good for them; and their masters had to find out and insist; their best welfare was obedience to law and routine, and the whip administered with judicious severity induced obedience and prevented too large doses of this wholesome physic.
It was the first outrunner of a breeze that had awakened the master of the paddles, a cool breeze that seemed to come off distant snows. Soon the falla was all bustle, and the great square sails that stretched beyond the bulwarks twice the breadth of the ship were taut before the wind. We spun along at a merry rate, and the paddles disappeared from the sides. But it was only a catspaw, and died away. The sails fell heavily against the masts, and had to be run down. The slaves again took their place at the paddles, and we lounged along the sultry leaden floor of the sea.
But suddenly there fell upon us like the stroke of a hammer a wandering gust; the masts creaked, the loose cordage lashed the ship in their fury till she staggered. Then all was still. The old leaden dulness came upon the waters; it had been like the gleam of gnashing teeth in the sullen monotony of enslaved work. A yell from the slaves’ quarters punctured the silence; it was partly from the whip of the boatswain, partly from the breaking of their paddles by the ridge of water that swept athwart us. In five minutes we were helpless between the surly rancour of the hurricane and the truculent floundering of the billows. On we rushed, staggering, drunken, with horror and frenzy. The slaves would not rise to the lash; the officers muttered curses between their teeth, and did what they could to guide her course. The daylight was blind with the angry dust of showers; the circle of grey film caged the ship, and eyes were futile and weary in their frantic eagerness to pierce it. Down in the women’s quarters I could see Sneekape and his fellows lying prostrate, their faces in their hands on the planks; the women were huddled together in apathetic limpness.
Out of the wreck that drowned so many of the Figlefians I was rescued by one of the slaves, who canoed me with his bride to the base of a great cliff. The tide was low: as high as we could reach, the surface was rough with living shells that moved to our touch, and streamers of seaweed rose and fell with the ripple. At last he forced the boat back from the rocky wall: there was strong suction inwards. He bade us with a gesture lie down flat in the bottom, whilst he at the bow grovelled with a hand raised to the low-valuted rock. We shot in underneath into darkness, but in a few minutes we were out of the torrent, moored in a peaceful bay.
