Cappy Ricks' anxious face turned a delicate green; he glanced up at his bully port captain as if in that rugged personality alone could he hope for salvation. Murphy caught the glance, shook his head, walked over to the engine-room telegraph and set the handle over to stop.
“No use, sir,” he informed Cappy. “That Dutchman is out of torpedoes, so he's coming up to shell us. We'll heave to and save funeral expenses.” He turned to the master of the Narcissus. “Captain, I'll stay on the bridge and conduct all negotiations with that fellow; get your mates, round up everybody and prepare to abandon the ship in a hurry. Get the motor cruiser overside first.”
As the captain hurried away, Terence Reardon came up on the bridge. The port engineer's gloomy visage portended tears, but through his narrowed lids Cappy Ricks saw not tears, but the light of murder. Terence did not speak, but thoughtfully puffed his pipe, and, with Murphy and Cappy Ricks, watched the booby hatch on the submarine's deck slide back and her long, slim, three-inch gun appear, like the tongue of a huge viper.
Heads appeared round the breech of the gun; so Michael J. Murphy seized a megaphone and shouted:
“Nein! Nix!” accompanying his words with wild pantomime that meant “Don't shoot!”
Captain Emil Bechtel was vastly relieved. He was not an inhuman man, even if, on occasion, as has already been demonstrated, he could, for the sake of national expediency, sink a ship without warning. Having missed with both torpedoes, he could now, in the event of national complications, enter a vigorous denial of any affidavits alleging an attempted breach of international law, and his government would uphold him. This knowledge rendered him both cheerful and polite, as he hove to some hundred yards to starboard of the Narcissus and informed Captain Michael J. Murphy that the latter had just fifteen minutes in which to save the ship's company; whereat Michael J. proved himself every inch a sailor, while Terence P. proved himself a marine engineer. If there was a word of opprobrium, mundane or nautical, which the port skipper didn't shout at that submarine commander, the port engineer supplied it. In all his life Cappy Ricks had never listened to such rich, racy, unctuous abuse; it lifted itself about the level of the commonplace and became a work of art. Cappy was horrified.
“Boys! Boys!” he pleaded. “This is frightful!”
“What do you expect from a German, sir?” Murphy demanded. “Frightfulness is his middle name.”
“I mean you two—and your language. Stop it! You'll contaminate me.”
“Well, sor,” Terence Reardon replied philosophically, “I suppose there's small use cryin' over spilt milk—musha, what are they up to now?”