Without the quiver of a nerve I swung down their deepest shafts in the big bucket on the end of a rope attached to a rough windlass, which brought up the miners and the mullock.

Before the boat had touched the side the crew were laboring at the noisy windlass with their shouts of "Yo heave ho! heave and pawl!

She would drop her crochet, and clutch her prayer-beads from her pocket, and relax the constraint over her lips, which would go to rattling off prayers with the velocity of a relaxed windlass.

The mouth of the shaft had been finally uncovered, a space cleared around it, and the frame of a rude windlass erected.

It was partly covered by the shrunken half of a lid, above which a rusty windlass creaked in company with the music of the pines when the wind blew strongly.