Several times during the progress of events Mac and I endeavoured to make an unobtrusive exit, but all to no purpose.
Slowly the time dragged on its weary course, then suddenly I became aware that the old Skagit was rising with the incoming tide. She swayed cumbrously once or twice, and her rotten timbers creaked and groaned dismally under the strain, but no one seemed to consider these indications worthy of attention, and the roystering chorus went on without interruption. At intervals I could hear vague voices calling excitedly without, and I guessed that the men who had built their homes in the sand were having a bad time.
Another half-hour passed. By this time the taste of the audience had reached the sentimental stage, and they loudly clamoured for a song suited to their altered temperament. The accompanist, however, persisted in playing the "hot time" tune to everything, so he was discharged with ignominy by the scornful prima donna, who announced in broken accents that she would give a rendering of "Ashtore" without musical assistance, which was most unwise on her part. Still, she persisted at her task, and got to the end of the first verse without mishap; but as she screamed out the last wailing notes of the chorus the old Skagit gave a sudden lurch, and sent her reeling head foremost into the centre of the room.
"What's the matter with the darned barge?" howled several indignant voices among the crowd, but no answer was forthcoming. The Skagit at that moment was seized with convulsions, and rolled and pitched in a most unaccountable manner.
"Howlin' blazes!" yelled Black Harry. "The happy home must have broken loose."
The rush that followed is beyond description. Mac and I, being less affected by the motion of the hulk than the majority, reached the deck first. Away far back to the right the lights of Skagway shimmered out over the smooth waters of Skagway Bay. To the left the faint illuminations of Healy's Store at Dyea shone at the head of the Chilcoot Inlet, along which great seas were rolling in from the main channel. We had drifted out with the ebbing tide, and we were now being borne onwards by the uninterrupted ocean gales. If we escaped being dashed to pieces against the rocky bluffs of the peninsula, we might be driven ashore on the mud banks at Dyea; but it was certain that the Skagit could not return to her wonted anchorage that night.
Loud and deep were the curses that now arose from all on board.
"It's Soapy Sam's work," howled O'Connor. "He must have cut the moorings. He said he would do it."
Then I remembered Soapy's warning, but held my peace, and while the men raved, and threatened, and prayed in turn, the old Skagit dashed on her new course, buffeted by the great seething rollers crowding in from the sea, and spinning like a top in the swirling waters. Crash! At last we had struck, and the surging waves swept over the deck in a copious flood, and the night was filled with the shrieks of the frenzied band, who feared the worst; but it was only a sand bar after all, the first of a series of similar obstacles that bar the Dyea Channel at high water.