n to heave. Maud held the turn on the windlass
and coiled down the slack.

We were astonished at the ease with which the spar was lifted. It was an
improved crank windlass, and the purchase it gave was enormous. Of
course, what it gave us in power we paid for in distance; as many times
as it doubled my strength, that many times was doubled the length of rope
I heaved in. The tackle dragged heavily across the rail, increasing its
drag as the spar arose more and more out of the water, and the exertion
on the windlass grew severe.

But when the butt of the topmast was level with the rail, everything came
to a standstill.

"I might have known it," I said impatiently. "Now we have to do it all
over again."

"Why not fasten the tackle part way down the mast?" Maud suggested.

"It's what I should have done at first," I answered, hugely disgusted
with myself.

Slipping off a turn, I lowered the mast back into the water and fastened
the tackle a third of the way down from the butt. In an hour, what of
this and of rests between the heaving, I had hoisted it to the point
where I could hoist no more. Eight feet of the butt was above the rail,
and I was as far away as ever from getting the spar on board. I sat down
and pondered the problem. It did not take long. I sprang jubilantly to
my feet.

"Now I have it!" I cried. "I ought to make the tackle fast at the point
of balance. And what we learn of this will serve us with everything else
we have to hoist aboard."

Once again I undid all my work by lowering the mast into the water. But
I miscalculated the point of balance, so that when I heaved the top of
the mast came up instead of the butt. Maud looked despair, but I laughed
and said it would do just as well.

Instructing her how to hold the turn and be ready to slack away at
command, I laid hold of the mast with my hands and tried to balance it
inboard across the rail. When I thought I had it I cried to her to slack
away; but the spar righted, despite my efforts, and dropped back toward
the water. Again I heaved it up to its old position, for I had now
another idea. I remembered the watch-tackle--a small double and single
block affair--and fetched it.

While I was rigging it between the top of the spar and the opposite rail,
Wolf Larsen came on the scene. We exchanged nothing more than
good-mornings, and, though he could not see, he sat on the rail out of
the way and followed by the sound all that I d