The noise was terrific, coming so unexpectedly out of the silence, and their argosy careened dangerously under some obstruction forward.
No orders were needed now.

They scrambled ashore, abandoning one of the lamps in their desperate hurry, and the policeman instantly extinguished the light of the other by pressing the glass closely to his breast when a rumble of curses heralded the coming on deck of two men who had been aroused from sleep on board the vessel by the thunderous onset of the colliding barge..