Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/160

 THE GALLEY-SLAVE

gallant was our galley from her carven steering-wheel

To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered steel;

The leg-bar chafed the ankle and we gasped for cooler air,

But no galley on the water with our galley could compare!

Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold—

We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold;

The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below,

As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made that galley go.

'Twas merry in the galley, for we revelled now and then—

If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men!