"Indeed! What?"
"He that works shall win."
"That's very encouraging; but it isn't always true."
"It is when you work in the right way," answered Noddy, as he took the end of the yard-arm rope, and, after passing it through a snatch-block, began to wind it around the barrel of the small capstan on the forecastle.
"Perhaps you haven't got the right way."
"If I haven't I shall try again, and keep trying till I do get it," replied Noddy, as he handed Mollie the end of the rope which he had wound four times round the capstan. "Do you think you can hold this rope and take in the slack?"
"I am afraid there will not be any to take in; but I can hold it, if there is," said she, satirically, but without even a smile.
Noddy inserted one of the capstan bars, and attempted to "walk round;" but his feeble powers were not sufficient to move the boat a single inch. He tightened up the rope, and that was all he could accomplish.
"I was afraid you could not stir it," said Mollie; but her tones were full of sympathy for her companion in his disappointment.
He struggled in vain for a time; but it required a little more engineering to make the machinery move. Taking a "gun-tackle purchase," or "tackle and fall," as it is called on shore, he attached one hook to the extreme end of the capstan bar, and the other to the rail. This added power accomplished the work; and he made the capstan revolve with ease, though the business went on very slowly. He was obliged to shift back the bar four times for every revolution of the barrel. But the boat moved forward, and that was success. He persevered, and skill and labor finally accomplished the difficult task. The boat floated in the water alongside the wreck. He had worked; he had won.