He ran to the helm, which had been lashed on the starboard side to keep it from fouling any submerged piles near the bank.

Casting it loose, he put it hard a-port, and shouted to the policeman and Devar to bring a couple of boards from the floor of the well, and use them to sheer in the hulk to the bank.
The night was pitch dark, the mist fell on them like an impenetrable veil, and the wooded heights which dominated both banks of the river prevented any ray of light from coming to their assistance.

Still, they had two lamps, which at least enabled them to see each other, and Curtis could judge with reasonable accuracy of the direction they were taking by the set of the stream.

They seemed to have been toiling a weary time before the helmsman fancied he could see something looming out of the void.

He believed that, however slowly, they were surely forging inshore again, and was about to ask Devar to abandon his valiant efforts to convert a long plank into a paddle and go forward in order to keep a lookout, when the barge crashed heavily into the stern of a ship of some sort, and simultaneously bumped into a wharf.